Lost Ark (Mac) 

Lost Ark on Mac

Lost Ark is an MMOARPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Action Role-Playing Game) developed by Tripod Studio and Smilegate RPG. The game came out a couple of years ago but was initially only available in South Korea. On the 11th February 2022, Amazon Games published the game for Europe and North America, which explains the surge in popularity that the game has received recently.

If you have played World of Warcraft or another MMORPG game, Lost Ark will probably feel familiar, though there are quite a few substantial differences between it and a game like WoW. You may have noticed the added “Action” sub-genre in MMORPG. This is because Lost Ark has a distinct emphasis on being a dynamic action game. Some even refer to it as a hack-and-slash MMORPG, which comes quite close to what the game is really about. You do get the typical MMORPG character progression through leveling up, upgrading gear, and buying new items, but when it comes down to combat, everything is much more dynamic and you have a lot more control of your character compared to other more traditional MMORPGs. Think of Lost Ark as a combination between WoW and Diablo and you will understand what we mean. Since its release, the game has gained massive popularity in South Korea, but since it hasn’t been available elsewhere in the world until now, western audiences are yet to experience Lost Ark and figure out whether they enjoy it as much as the South Koreans.

Progression

One of the first things that new players will notice when they start playing Lost Ark for the first time is that the initial section of the game is a very linear experience. Unlike other MMORPGs, where you are released into the open world from level one and are free to explore and figure things out for yourself, in the early stage of your Lost Ark experience, the game, more or less, holds you by the hand and guides you through specific levels that you need to complete in order to level up and progress your character. You can explore around, take upon side quests and other challenges, but in the end, you will still need to complete the quests from the main storyline in order to get your hero to level 50, which is the maximum available level for the game, and from which point on the progression mechanic shifts. 

These early-level missions/quests are the same for every player, and you will always need to go through them with each new character you create. While this is a nice way to ease new players into the game and make their journey towards the endgame content less of a hassle, while also letting them experience the game’s story, it also takes away a bit from the freedom of reaching the endgame on your own that is often associated with this type of games. I, personally, am not a fan of this type of early-game progression, but I can see its merits, and even if I don’t like it, it doesn’t take away from the game’s other strengths.

Endgame content

Once you complete the main storyline and reach level 50 (should take you between 20 and 30 hours), your character would be at max level. This, however, doesn’t mean you cannot get them more powerful. Once you hit level 50, you can continue improving your character, but now it would be solely through upgrading your gear and acquiring stronger items. In and of itself, this is a perfectly legitimate way of staging the character’s progress in a game. However, the gear-upgrading system may not be for everyone. In order to upgrade a given piece of character gear, you need to find specific materials and then use them for the upgrade. Needless to say, the more powerful your gear gets, the more materials would be required to upgrade it further. However, each subsequent upgrade has a higher chance of failing, which results in losing all materials you’ve acquired for the upgrade, forcing you to start all over again. It’s a rather grindy system and while some players may not mind it, I am pretty certain that it can become quite tedious once your characters start getting close to being maxed out.

Combat

The main highlight and selling point of Lost Ark has to be its combat system. As mentioned before, it is very dynamic and action-packed, and it feels very satisfying. Since Lost Ark is primarily a PvE (Player vs Environment) game, you will encounter various types of enemies throughout your gameplay experience – from smaller minions that charge you in large numbers, only to get reduced to bloodied chunks of organic matter, to large and challenging bosses that you will force you to spend time learning their attack patterns before you can successfully defeat them. Regardless of what enemy you are fighting, the combat stays extremely crisp, responsive, engaging, and over-the-top. Yes, if you like huge battles with all sorts of whacky and destructive area-of-effect abilities, you will love the combat system of Lost Ark. Every character you can play in this game can become super powerful and perform a variety of devastating moves that both look and feel amazing. In other words, while playing Lost Ark, you will feel like an overpowered anime character decimating smaller enemies by the hundreds or fighting even more overpowered bigger enemies that have some specific weakness that you need to figure out and exploit to defeat them.

The game also offers PvP (Player vs Player), and its great combat system carries over there too. It’s quite fun facing up against other players on Lost Ark and turning the entire screen into a whirlwind of powerful spells and abilities flying in every direction.

Story

The story is usually not the main focus in multiplayer games and, though there is a specific storyline in Lost Ark, it’s probably not going to impress anyone. Still, we don’t want to spoil anything, so we won’t go in-depth about the game’s story, but this isn’t one of the stronger aspects of Lost Ark. At best, the story in Lost Ark is your typical run-of-the-mill fantasy story – you know it’s there, but you are too busy turning another horde of enemy minions into a bloody mush to care about it.

Conclusion

All in all, Lost Ark is a pretty fun game with some impressive combat and beautiful graphics to enhance it. If you like top-down hack-and-slash RPG games like Diablo and/or MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, you should definitely give it a try, especially since it’s free-to-play. And while its rather linear early-game or grindy endgame character progression may not be every player’s cup of tea, it’s something that’s easily forgotten while you are having tons of fun slaying monster after monster with your awesome and powerful character.

Can you play Lost Ark on Mac?

Yes, you can play Lost Ark on Mac. You should be able to play Lost Ark on Mac, but you will first need to get Windows 10 installed on your Mac. Another way to play Lost Ark on Mac is through Boosteroid – a cloud gaming platform. Currently, Lost Ark is only available for Windows PC – there is no Mac version for the game, and it doesn’t seem that one will be released in the foreseeable future. The method for playing Windows-exclusive games on Macs that we recommend is using cloud gaming. Though Lost Ark just got released in North America and Europe, it is already available on Boosteroid – one such cloud gaming service.

There are also strong indications that the game will be added to GeForce Now for those regions as well. Of course, the method of first getting Windows on your Mac and then using it to run the Windows version of Lost Ark directly on your Mac is also an option. Obviously, each of those techniques of playing Lost Ark on Mac is some form of a workaround, yet there’s no shortage of options to choose from. Further down this post, we will explain to you each of the suggested methods and show you how to use them.

Lost Ark is currently not on Mac, and it doesn’t seem that the game will receive an official macOS version anytime soon. Still, if you are a Mac user wanting to play Lost Ark on their Mac, there are some methods that may help you.

How to play Lost Ark on Mac

To play Lost Ark on Mac, you can use cloud gaming – the game is already available on Boosteroid and will likely soon get added to GeForce Now. You can also play Lost Ark on Mac by first emulating Windows using Parallels or Boot Camp.

Lost Ark has just become available on Boosteroid, so there’s now an easy and effective way to play the game on Mac. Additionally, it is expected that Lost Ark will become available on GeForce Now in the near future. According to most reports, this would probably happen by the end of February, 22, yet there are no guarantees or any official information from Amazon Games (the publisher of Lost Ark for North America and Europe). Once/if the game gets added to the GeForce Now library, we will make sure to let you know by updating this article.

As for playing the game through Boosteroid, here are our instructions on how to do that.

Lost Ark Set Up Methods

Lost Ark with Cloud Gaming

Step 1. Get Lost Ark

Before playing Lost Ark make sure you get the game through the official websites. For the moment only Steam is compatible with cloud gaming services such as Boosteriod and Geforce Now.

Step 2. Register and add Lost Ark to the Boosteroid cloud gaming library.

All you need to do now is register for Boosteroid. This allows you to add Lost Ark to their Cloud Gaming Library. Once uploaded you can seamlessly play the game from your Mac, TV, or Mobile Device.

When Registered you will have additional access to more top-rated games for free. Pricing varies depending on the subscription plan.

Play Lost Ark with Boosteroid

1. You will first need to be registered on Steam – do that if you don’t already have an account there.
2. Go to the site of Boosteroid, click Create an account, and register with your email address. Alternatively, you can choose to sign up with Google. I had some difficulties signing up with my Google account, so I recommend creating a new account for the service.
   
3. Once you are registered, log in to Boosteroid, open the Boosteroid page of Lost Ark, and click Play.
   
   
4. If this is your first time playing a game through this service, you will be shown a subscription prompt, where you must click Subscribe, then pick a payment plan and payment method, and provide the necessary details to complete the subscription to Boosteroid.
   
5. Next, return to the Lost Ark page on Boosteroid, launch the game, and after an initial loading period, log in with your Steam account when prompted to.
6. After you do this, Lost Ark should start directly in the browser you are currently using.
   • Note that if you are seeing any freezes, long loading times, or other performance hiccups in the game, and it’s not because of an insufficiently fast Internet, you may need to switch to a different browser. Boosteroid is said to work best with Opera or Chrome, so if you are currently using it from another browser, consider switching to either one of these two.

Play Lost Ark with GeForce Now

Once the game gets added to the GeForce Now library, you will be able to play it from there too, so here is a quick guide on how to use that service:

1. Go to Steam and create an account if you don’t have one.
2. Visit the site of GeForce Now, click the Join Now button, choose the subscription plan you prefer, and register.
   • You’d need to enter your payment details if you have selected a paid plan.
3. Open the Download section of the GeForce Now site, download the GeForce Now app for Mac, and install it.
4. Launch the app, enter your account details to log in, search for the game, and click it.
5. Select the Steam version of the game, click Play, and agree to connect to your Steam account by clicking on Continue.
6. Once the game begins, log in to your Seam account, and you will be able to start playing.

For additional details on using GeForce Now on Mac, click the linked article.

How to download Lost Ark on Mac

To download Lost Ark on Mac, you must create a Windows 10 virtual machine using a virtualization program such as Parallels. Another way to download Lost Ark on Mac is to first install Windows 10 using the Boot Camp Assistant app (only for Intel-based Macs).

Since the game is currently not on any cloud gaming platform and since it has no macOS version, the only remaining option to run it on a Mac is to first get Windows 10 on that Mac.

There are two main variants to choose from when it comes to installing Windows on a Mac. The first one involves the use of a program called Parallels to create a Windows 10 virtual machine, which is basically an app with the interface and functionality of a Windows PC. It will allow you to run most Windows programs and games in it, and this would hopefully include Lost Ark. The second option, which only works on Intel Macs, is to use Boot Camp Assistant – a built-in Intel Mac app – to install Windows 10 in a separate partition on the computer.

Play Lost Ark with Parallels

1. Go to Parallels.com and download the program’s installation file. We recommend first getting the free trial version which lasts 14 days so that you can test the VM and see how well Lost Ark performs when you play it through Parallels.
2. Install Parallels on your computer by running the .dmg file and following the directions on the screen.
3. Once Parallels has been installed, open it and select the “Install Windows” option to begin the process of creating a Windows VM.
4. Create a Parallels profile or sign in to the virtual machine using one of the other available sign-up options.
5. Once you enter the VM, download the Steam or the Epic Games client and use it to install the game on the virtual machine.

If you need more in-depth steps for Parallels with screenshots , check out our Full Parallels Guide for solutions.

Play Lost Ark with Boot Camp Assistant

1. To install Windows 10 on your Intel Mac, you must first get a Windows 10 ISO file from this page (download the 64-bit version).
2. Next, you must open the Boot Camp Assistant tool (located in Applications > Utilities), load the ISO file into it, and give the Windows partition enough space for the OS and for the game (preferably around 170-200 GB).
3. Next, click Install, wait for your Mac to restart, and follow the Windows 10 installation prompts to launch the installation.
4. Once you install Windows 10, take some time to customize its settings and then use the Boot Camp Assistant window you will see open on your screen to install Apple drivers for Mac. Once this is done, you can get the game from Steam and install it in your Windows 10 partition.

For additional details on installing Windows 10 using Boot Camp Assistant, you can click the provided link.

Lost Ark on Mac M1

To play Lost Ark on Mac M1, we recommend running the game through the Boosteroid cloud gaming platform. You can also use Parallels to create a Windows 10 virtual machine and then use it to download and run Lost Ark on Mac M1.

Using Parallels is a very popular method used by Mac users who want to play unsupported games on their M1 Macs. The aforementioned Boot Camp option doesn’t work on M1 Mac models because the Windows 10 installation through Boot Camp Assistant isn’t compatible with the M1 chip architecture.

On the other hand, the Parallels virtual machines for Windows 10 are compatible with both Intel Macs and M1 Macs, and they also offer specialized gaming optimization that allows for a smoother gaming experience through the VM.

If you don’t want to go through the somewhat lengthy process of setting up a virtual machine for Windows 11 and then downloading and installing Lost Ark in that VM in order to play it, you can always use Boosteroid instead and run Lost Ark directly from your main browser.

How to play Lost Ark on Android

To play Lost Ark on Android, we would recommend registering on the Boosteroid game streaming service and playing the game through its Android app. Another option to play Lost Ark on Android is to download it on a Windows PC and stream it from there.

Using a game streaming service such as Boosteroid to play Lost Ark on Android is typically the more advantageous option since it lets you play the game as if it were installed on your Android device, whereas, with the other option, you’d need to be within range of the same network that the PC is connected to or else you won’t be able to stream the game. This is beside the fact that not everyone owns a gaming-capable PC. Nevertheless, below you will find instructions for both of those methods.

Play Lost Ark on Android with Boosteroid

1. Click here to go to the Boosteroid site and get an account there if you don’t already have one.
2. Install the Boosteroid app for Android on your Android device – the app is available in the Google Play Store.
3. Start the app and enter your Boosteroid account. Then tap the profile/account button shown in the lower-right corner, and select Subscribe.
   
4. Start your Boosteroid subscription by choosing a payment plan and method, and entering the details required of you.
   
5. Search for Lost Ark in the Boosteroid app, tap on the game to visit its page, and then tap Play.
6. Tap OK when you are informed that you must log in to Steam to play the game, and wait for a couple of moments to get to a Steam login screen.
7. Tap on the keyboard icon/button shown in the top-left and then use the touch keyboard that appears to enter your Steam username and password and to log in.
8. Next, Lost Ark should start in Boosteroid and you can start playing it. If no gamepad is connected to your phone, you can get touchscreen controls for the game by tapping the controller in the top-left.

Play Lost Ark on Android by streaming it from a PC

As mentioned, for this, you will need a PC that can run Lost Ark and that has the game installed on it. Also, the two devices must be using the same network for the duration of the streaming session. If those two conditions are met, here are three apps that can allow you to stream Lost Ark to your Android device.

AMD Link – To stream with AMD Link, the PC you are streaming from must be with an AMD Radeon GPU. First, you need to go to the AMD Radeon Settings app on the computer, open the AMD Link section, toggle on AMD Link Server, and then click on Add Device to get a QR code you must scan with your phone. On your phone, download and open AMD Link, then tap QR Scan and scan the code shown on your PC screen. This should get the two devices paired, after which you must go to the Gaming section on your PC and select Lost Ark from the list of games to begin streaming it.

Moonlight Game Streaming – This streaming method is only for PCs with Nvidia GPUs. To use it, you will need an Nvidia registration and the GeForce Now Experience app installed on your PC. Open GeForce Experience, enter your Nvidia account, then open Settings, go to the Shield section, and turn on Gamestream. Next, make sure that the Steam client on your PC is open and that you are logged in. Now, on the Android device, start Moonlight Game Streaming, tap on your PC, and pair the two devices. Next, select the Steam icon and use the Steam interface that will appear on both devices to navigate to your Steam library and start Lost Ark from there.

Steam Link – Start Steam on your PC, enter your account, then download and launch Steam Link on the Android device, and tap on the name of your PC when it appears in the app. Pair the two devices by entering the 4-digit code on the computer, and then connect your Android device to the PC. Once the screens of the two devices get mirrored and on both of them there is a Steam interface, go to your Steam library and start Lost Ark from there.