Lost Ark Is the Latest Game To Get a Battle Pass

Lost Ark's rumoured Battle Pass is now official and already available.

Amazon Games confirmed in a blog post that the Ark Pass would be included in the action-RPG as part of the April update that released today.

The Battle Pass works in the same way as Fortnite's or Call of Duty's: players will progress through levels for different rewards by simply playing the game or, in some cases, completing specific objectives.

The regular Ark Pass is free and grants several rewards across 30 levels including a mount, pirate coins, and honing material selection chests.

Two other versions of the pass are available at an additional cost. The Premium Ark Pass costs 1,500 Royal Crystals and adds extra rewards at each level including a Vertus Pet, rapport chests, and gems.

The Super Premium Ark Pass costs 3,000 Royal Crystals and includes all previous rewards plus selection chests for the Noble Banquet skin collection, a matching wallpaper, and some legendary rapport chests.

Royal Crystals are available in set packs: 1,000 for $9.99, 2,200 for $19.99, and 5,750 for $49.99.

Also in today's Lost Ark update is the new Martial Artist advanced class, the Glaivier, which uses a short spear in the Flurry stance and a glaive in the Focus stance. Players are encouraged to use both modes as different abilities activate when swapping between stances.

The brand new region of South Vern is also now available, which requires an item level of 1,340 as the second Tier 3 continent in the game. It features new quests, characters, and stories centred around Queen Ealyn and Knight Commander Avele.

Several other additions have also arrived in the April update including new timed events and dozens of bug fixes, balance adjustments, and new additions to the Lost Ark store.

Lost Ark has proved immensely popular on PC since it was released in the west in February, shooting to second place on Steam's most played games of all time and amassing over 20 million players.

The launch hasn't been without issues though, and Amazon Games recently admitted it released the first major update too soon after launch, pressuring players into paying for what was meant to be free content.

It's also been criticised for having gender-locked classes, meaning only men can be warriors and women can be mages, and so on, alongside its female characters' revealing outfits, though these concerns have been somewhat addressed.

In our 8/10 review, IGN said: "Lost Ark is an extremely generous free-to-play ARPGMMO that draws a lot from Diablo – including its well-worn story about humans and Heaven teaming up against demons."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.