Amazon has begun to invest heavily in the gaming world and their efforts generally fail to capture an audience while some of the projects failed to even see the light of day. But one game managed to stick the landing i.e. New World, an MMO, which happens to captivate an audience. Amazon’s biggest and most prominent move in the gaming industry was to bring the insanely popular Korean MMORPG, Lost Ark, to the west, though this game is not developed by them, their association as publishers has put Amazon in good graces within the gaming community.
Though both these games are MMORPGs, there are significant differences between the two that sets them apart and help reel in a dedicated player base. If you are confused about which one to jump into then follow this article as we discuss the differences.
There are huge differences in New World and Lost Ark in these areas:
- Free-To-Play vs Buying
- Isometric vs Third-Person
- World / Map
- Combat
- PvP
- PvE
- Housing
- Mounts
- Co-Oping
- Setting
- Controller Support
Related: Why Do You Start at Level 10 in Lost Ark?
Major Difference
There are some major differences that totally change the way you experience the game and these will be the ones that impact your decision of which game to go for.
Free-To-Play vs Buying
Lost Ark has always been free-to-play and considering the amount of content you get from this free game is quite impressive. You can very easily play the whole game for free and most in-game microtransactions are more cosmetic based though there are some progression-aiding items there but you don’t have to buy them if you don’t want to. The good thing is you can not buy any gear that will put this game in a pay-to-win category.
New World comes with a price tag which you pay upfront and get access to the whole game. The cash shop in the game is only cosmetic items so there aren’t any pay walls that will hinder your progression.
Isometric vs Third-Person
There are some very obvious differences between these games. Lost Ark is a top-down isometric ARPG in an MMO setting meaning that it has the structure and playstyle of other ARPGs like Diablo and Path of Exile that has MMO elements like seeing players out in the world, group dungeons raids, and more.
New World is a more traditional third-person MMORPG that has a similar combat style to games like Dark Souls. There are similar elements to any MMO like raids and trade skills.
Related: Do Choices Actually Matter in Lost Ark?
World / Map
Lost Ark’s world/maps are open but are a bit more area-focused and instance-focused and are divided into zones that requires the players to traverse through with loading screens separating each zone. New World on the other hand has a seamless open-world design where next to no loading screen interrupts the players from moving from one location to another.
Combat
New World has a more Dark Souls-esque combat style where you generally fight fewer enemies in a more engaging manner, the focus is on a few key abilities and some are even tied to the weapon you have equipped which you can carry two of at a time.
Lost Ark has deeply layered classes and each has a ton of abilities that you can slot in according to your preference. The combat is heavily reliant on continuous use of these abilities and the player will almost always be fighting hordes of enemies which they will deal with massive bombastic moves. There is less emphasis on one on one action and more on mob clearing scenarios.
PvP
Lost ark has PvP content but it’s more optional side content and not necessarily the main dish like New World. In lost ark, you have a few PvP locations but outside that it’s all arena based, this means the matches are of either ranked or unranked style where fights of 1v1s or 3v3s or the guild combats usually take place. Due to the vast array of classes and their unique play style, the arena duels tends to stay fresh and incredibly skill-based, relying on how players use super armor and when they utilize rolls and dodges. However, PvP in Lost Ark doesn’t have an impact outside the arenas. There are no large-scale battles that you can partake in in Lost Ark.
Related: 5 Benefits of Joining A Company in New World
New World has an amazing PvP side though the PvP content has been drying out recently. The game is centered around fighting in the open world to take over territories from rival groups and having large-scale 50 vs 50 wars to see who gets the ownership of the territories from where you can get income from crafting housing and taxing them in your settlements. These battles over settlements are the main driving force of PvP in New World. There is also Outpost Rush which is an instance of 20 vs 20 PvPvE game mode that’s also pretty decent. There are no arena-based fighting modes in New World though you can always fight the next enemy guild member you see in the open world if you opt for PvP.
PvE
Lost Ark is much more PvE focused than New World and is miles ahead in this particular category. Lost Ark has been out for a few years in South Korea and Russia so it has the advantage of overtime content added by the developers. In Lost Ark leveling to the soft cap max level of 50 is basically the prologue in terms of PvE content and then after that, the game really opens up with new islands, chaos dungeons, raids, and so much more. In Lost Ark, there are always quests to do and places to explore on your ship and it’s overwhelmingly filled with content without even getting into doing guild quests or building your stronghold. The quality of this PvE content is sometimes mind-bogglingly good, events like raiding Luterra Castle stands out as quality mission.
New World on the other hand lacks good PvE content. On top of the ordinary quests, you have the trade skills that you can do if you like but the enjoyment of that is quite subjective and in some cases, it gets quite tedious. The questing in New World is also not the best however there are some good storylines if you read the text. The main quests in New World are great though. The dungeons in this game are fun just the issue is when you hit max level there are only three that matter considering the dungeon mutations system which scales late game content to things interesting and that is quite low and ends up being repetitive. New world’s PvE content gets halted a bit once you hit max level and then there isn’t much to do. The only real PvE content you get is Gypsum which is their daily content system but that feels like a tacked-on feature to an abrupt stop at max level.
Related: Best New World Server for PvP
Minor Differences
These are some of the other differences that might not impact your decision as much but there are still present and adds to the overall experience of each game.
Housing
In Lost Ark, you are given an island to build your stronghold which is your center of operations and there are many upgrades that rely on researching that goes on here. This is your house in the game which you can’t really build up to your liking with there being a specific path to its upgrades. While in New World the housing system is more customizable from buying a house and being able to decorate it with trade skills or buying furniture of your preference. New World’s housing system is a bit more enjoyable as you can decorate and customize it down to a T.
Mounts
New World has only one way of traversing and that is on foot and considering the size of the map, it gets quite tedious to say the least. The fast travel system requires a good amount of resources to use each time which is a chore to gather if you are running low, if so then you are forced to walk to most places you want to go.
Lost Ark has an insane amount of beasts to mount up on and gallop to your desired location. There are horses, dinosaurs, giant bugs, and the list goes on and on. You are given a mount as soon as you make it to the first village and are even rewarded a bunch of them for completing different quests. The fast travel system is also there in Lost Ark though way cheaper to use.
Related: Why is Zinnervale So Popular in Lost Ark?
Co-Oping
New World has a complex way to co-op the game with a friend. In New World, if you don’t start your character on the same server as your partner, you couldn’t play with them. To make matters even worse if you load into the same server you will end up in totally different locations on the map and will have to walk to your friend’s location.
In Lost Ark, all you have to do is join the same server, switch channel instances, and party up. Grouping up in Lost Ark is classic and easy.
Setting
New World is set in medieval times with elements of fantasy strewn about. The whole game is about humans struggling and fighting in these circumstances. On the other hand, Lost Ark has gone the traditional fantasy route of most MMOs, and that saying it conservatively. The developers have jammed in so many different inspirations in this game. There are levels where you fight robots, there are some where you are challenging demons and some even have a very unique approach to them which we won’t spoil for you. Lost Ark goes all over the place and depending on your preference, this keeps things quite interesting.
Related: Lost Ark Vs Path of Exile: Which is the Better Game?
Controller Support
If you are a laid-back controller player and wanted to play an MMO and considering not many MMOs support this input device then you are in luck as Lost Ark has a robust controller support system even going as far as making it easy to assign all the different skills your character uses. If you can wrap your head around using this rather complicated way of playing then more power to you.
New World sadly doesn’t have any controller support at the moment and you end up applying various hacks and tricks to get it to work in the game though the game is not designed for it so you might face issues doing so.
The differences between Lost Ark and New World are like almost night and day and it all boils down to what type of game you like to play or which feature ends up pulling you in. We would also like to add that recently New World has been losing a lot of its player base resulting from a lack of content so we are not sure about the life that remains in the game though it still has a dedicated community that sings praises for it.
As for Lost Ark if you are coming from the NA/EU perspective then you will be surprised to know that the NA/EU version of the game doesn’t even have all the content that is already available in the Korean and Russian markets so it is safe to say there is a lot of content coming your way and the frequency of new content from the developers has been quite impressive.