Amazon is finally bringing Lost Ark to us – and with it the Founder’s Packs. We explain to you what advantages the Pioneer’s Packs bring.
After a long wait, Lost Ark will finally be released here on 11 February 2022. Amazon Games is bringing developer Smilegate’s blend of MMO and action role-playing game to the West, having previously launched Lost Ark to great success in Korea, Japan and Russia.
Update: This article originally appeared a few months ago. On the occasion of the upcoming release of Lost Ark, we have thoroughly revised it and added up-to-date information.
Lost Ark is a classic Free2Play game, which means you can simply download and play it on release. Alternatively, you can pre-order so-called Founder’s Packs in advance. In our overview, we present the individual packages and tell you what advantages they bring.
- These Founder’s Packs are available
- Bronze Founder’s Pack
- Silver Founder’s Pack
- Gold Founder’s Pack
- Platinum Founder’s Pack
- What is the Crystal Aura?
- Is this Pay2Win?
These Founder’s Packs are available
In total, Amazon offers four different Founder’s Packs (pioneer packs), covering a price range from 15 to 100 euros. Similar to other games with Founder’s Packs, the more expensive the pack, the more benefits.
Bronze Founder’s Pack
At 14,99 Euro, the Bronze Founder’s Pack is the cheapest of the four packages and offers the following benefits:
- Three days early access (8 February 2022)
- exclusive pet
- 30 days crystal aura
- Pioneer title
Basically, the package is especially interesting if you want to start a few days before the official release. The title and pet are nice bonuses, but you also get some of them for free in the game. The crystal aura is probably the biggest incentive, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Silver Founder’s Pack
At 24,99 Euro the Founder’s Pack Silver is a bit more expensive. Here you get these benefits:
- Three days early access (8 February 2022)
- exclusive pet
- 30 days crystal aura
- Pioneer title
- 1,000 Royal Crystals
- Silver Storage Box
The Royal Crystals are the real money currency of Lost Ark. You can use them to buy cosmetic items, companions and other things in the in-game shop
Meanwhile, the Silver Storage Chest is not additional storage space, but you will receive the following in-game bonuses with it:
- 30 Resurrection Feathers (revives you if you die)
- 10,000 silver pieces (standard in-game currency)
- Equipment Box for Adventurers (contains various items, such as flame grenades or sleep bombs)
- Collector’s Toolbox (free crafting tools, but you can also purchase them for in-game currency)
- Adventurer level up chests for level 20, level 30, level 40 and level 50 (contain silver and healing potions)
Gold Founder’s Pack
With the Gold Founder’s Pack, there’s a big jump in the price: the pack costs 49.99 euros and offers you these benefits:
- Three days early access (8 February 2022)
- exclusive pet
- 30 days crystal aura
- Pioneer title
- 4,000 Royal Crystals
- Gold Supply Box
- exclusive pioneer avatar
- character expansion slot
On the one hand, the gold pack gives you more of the real-money currency, while the gold supply chest contains the same as its silver counterpart. The avatar, on the other hand, is a skin for a class of your choice – you have to choose wisely.
Not to be neglected is the expansion slot for characters. You can buy them separately in the game, but one is included in the gold package. Without one, you have six free slots at the beginning.
Platinum Founder’s Pack
The most expensive of the four Founder’s Packs is Platinum and costs a whopping 99.99 euros. For this you get the following advantages:
- Three days early access (8 February 2022)
- exclusive pet
- 30 days crystal aura
- Pioneer title
- 7,000 Royal Crystals
- Platinum Supply Box
- exclusive pioneer avatar
- additional Avatar of the Pioneers – exclusive in Platinum Package
- exclusive Pioneer Mount
- Platinum Welcome Chest
- character expansion slot
In the platinum package you get a little bit more of everything: The platinum supply chest offers more than the silver and gold variants, there are more royal crystals and in addition to the pet you also get an exclusive mount and another avatar.
The Welcome Chest, on the other hand, offers an exclusive login screen, an exclusive building for your island fortress, a box of Legendary Relationship Gifts and a limited edition card pack.
What is the Crystal Aura?
What all packs share is the 30-day crystal aura. This is a buff that you can also purchase yourself later in the in-game shop and that gives you some advantages to progress a little faster in some cases. To be more precise, the aura grants you the following bonuses:
- Triport cost waiver (free teleport)
- 50% discount on steamer (ship to travel across the seas)
- Daily NPC affinity interaction +1
- Restoration of life energy +10% (needed for skills like hunting or woodcutting)
- Bifrost: Place +2 (allows you to return to places you have already visited)
- Song of Return: cooldown -50% (shorter cooldown to return to home place directly)
- Fortress Research: -10% (Research time reduced)
- Fortress Production: -10% (Production time reduced)
- Fortress Expedition: -10% (Expedition time reduced)
- Fortress Action Energy: regeneration speed +10% (increased energy regeneration for fortress projects)
- Ultimate anti-stress in the fortress (special scarecrow to increase levelling speed)
- Crystal Benefactor Title (additional title)
In summary, the Crystal Aura gives you advantages to progress a little faster in the world and you level up faster. However, we are not yet able to assess how much the individual advantages actually affect the gameplay.
Is this Pay2Win?
The question of all questions, to which we cannot yet give a detailed answer based on the EU version. Although the individual packs certainly offer playful advantages, their impact cannot yet be definitively judged.
The developers of the EU version told us in an interview that you should also be able to get any content by playing the game. However, paying players are assured of slightly faster progress. How much these advantages will affect the Arena PVP, for example, and whether we will ultimately have to talk about Pay2Win or Pay2Progress in the European version, will become clear in the test at the latest.
