Lost Ark

Lost Ark is a free-to-play isometric MMO action-RPG developed by Smilegate RPG in South Korea, where it launched in 2019. Amazon GamesPublisherAmazon GamesAmazon Games is Amazon's publishing arm for the Western market, bringing Korean MMOs to Steam: Smilegate's Lost Ark and NCSoft's Throne and Liberty. Both ship Easy Anti-Cheat, and both met large bot and real-money-trading problems at launch that Amazon answered with mass ban waves.2 games in this family → published the Western version on Steam on February 11, 2022, running on UnrealEngineUnreal Engine (Epic Games)Epic Games' Unreal Engine is the most widely used engine in big-budget PC games. Versions 4 and 5 power a substantial share of the modern competitive shooter market, including Valorant (UE4), Fortnite (UE5), PUBG (UE4), The Finals (UE5), and Delta Force (UE5).20 games in this family → Engine 3. It blends Diablo-style action combat with a large MMO world, raids, and a deep progression and trading economy.

Playing Lost Ark on PC means Easy Anti-Cheat's kernel driver loads with the game. The legitimate process is LOSTARK.exe inside the Steam directory. If launches fail with an EACAnti-cheatEasy Anti-Cheat (EAC)Easy Anti-Cheat is one of the most widely deployed kernel anti-cheats in PC gaming. Founded by Finnish company Kamu in 2006, acquired by Epic Games in 2018, and bundled with Epic Online Services. The kernel driver loads while a protected game is running. User-mode daemons EasyAntiCheat.exe and EasyAntiCheat_EOS.exe are catalogued in the Field Guide's processes section.18 games in this family → error, repair the anti-cheat from the game's Win64 folder rather than disabling it. It is free to install and free to play, but the cash shop and the bot-shaped economy are part of the picture; Amazon's stated position is that spending in the shop does not shield an account from real-money-trading enforcement.

Lost Ark uses Easy Anti-Cheat, in the Epic Online Services variant whose easyanticheat_eos.exeProcesseasyanticheat_eos.exeEasy Anti-Cheat for Epic Online Services (EOS variant)Open plate → daemon is catalogued in the Field Guide's processes section. On Windows, EAC runs a kernel-mode driver that loads with the game and unloads when it closes. The main process is LOSTARK.exe, in the Steam library's Win64 folder, with the EAC installer alongside it. The kernel driver can remain installed after the game is closed or uninstalled until removed, the standard EAC behavior, and it is the same anti-cheat that protects Apex Legends and Fortnite.

Lost Ark's Western launch was historic and turbulent. It peaked above 1.3 million concurrent players on Steam, the second-highest count in Steam's history at the time, behind only PUBG. The launch was strained by long queues and regional server capacity, and Amazon stood up a new Europe West data center within days to relieve the load. The bigger story was bots. Within weeks the game was overrun by automated gold-farming accounts, and Amazon said publicly it was fighting a war against them. It banned over a million accounts in March 2022, then several million cumulatively by that May, with further waves in June; PC Gamer reported that some inactive but legitimate accounts were caught in one wave. Developer Smilegate, like the genre generally, carries a Korean-market reputation for monetization and real-money-trading pressure that Amazon adjusted for the West. Sources include PC Gamer, Kotaku, MMORPG.com, and GamesRadar.