At the end of December 2022, Amazon Games unveiled the first part of its definitive roadmap for the first months of 2023 in Lost Ark. The opportunity in particular to discover the very soon arrival of the Artist as a new advanced class, but in a version that is already debated since censored compared to the original one. In this article, we offer you a brief overview of the most important novelties of the coming months, as well as any subtleties announced by the publisher.
- The complete official roadmap is available in French here
Summary of the beginning of the year 2023 in Lost Ark
To summarize, here is the content announced in this roadmap for the first months of 2023:
- The Witcher Event
- Special Events for the Lost Ark Anniversary
- New Continent: The Rowen (item level 1445+)
- New PvP Content: 48v48 RvR in Tulubik Battlefield (item level 1490+)
- Introduction of the 3rd Arche Pass
- New Advanced Class: The Artist
- Brelshaza Hard Mode (item level 1540+)
- New Guardian Raid: Hanumatan (Item Level 1540+)
This content will be deployed gradually over the first months of 2023. Amazon Games also specifies in its press release that this is only part of the elements that the publisher plans to publish on Lost Ark, many more are to come, including balancing, bug fixes and improvements to certain game systems, such as Una's Tasks.
The Artist in Lost Ark: Censorship Continues
All these new features should delight the still many players who roam the vast territories of Archésia. However, the joy quickly turned to disappointment when Amazon Games revealed in its press release that the next advanced class would be the Artist. Indeed, this is the penultimate to have been deployed on the Korean servers, and while the female version of the Berserker is still missing, the publisher seems to have made the choice to change the order of deployment of classes again. Why not, even if it disappoints in the end those who were waiting for this option that they covet enormously.
But it is also and above all the astonishing position taken, although already seen, by Amazon Games regarding the look of the Artist which is being debated at the time of writing these lines. The Western publisher has indeed indicated that it is carrying out a certain form of censorship of the outfits of this new class because it is considered " too short ". The idea here would therefore be to add shorts or tights under the skirts of the characters embodying this class in order to " better correspond to Western standards ".
However, this is not the first time that Amazon Games has done this with Lost Ark. Shortly before its deployment at the start of 2022, we already discovered certain "adaptations to the Western public" aimed at reducing the sexualization of the female characters in the game, or changing, for example, the skin color of certain non-player characters. And if these multiple positions are sometimes accepted, other times controversial, it is above all the fact that they are political choices that seem disturbing (because that is what it is all about) .
Thus, the Artist will be accessible in a more "Westernized" version with less short outfits, or clothes aimed at hiding the parts of his body that could be sexualized because they are too visible. The class will however remain intact in terms of gameplay, only its visual appearance will be adjusted. Heated debates are already taking place, and this should last for a while...
If Nintendo knows how to take advantage of games like Super Smash Bros or Mario Kart 8 perfectly well, why is Animal Crossing New Horizons abandoned in this way today when the remaining possibilities are endless?
