Lost Ark is getting a busy end to the year, with a multi-stage Kazeros raid arriving across October and November and a set of quality of life updates slated for December, but there’s a sizeable catch for North American players. Before the new raid content begins, Smilegate will merge the NA East and NA West regions, which will cause downtime and could force name changes for some accounts.
The Kazeros content kicks off with a prologue questline this month, leading into Act 4, the Fortress of Destruction in November. The raid is an eight-player, two-gate encounter aimed at endgame players. You’ll need high item levels to take it seriously: normal mode expects item level 1,700 or above, and hard mode requires 1,720.
Clearing the first gate won’t be the end. The raid’s second gate reveals Kazeros’ true form in a fight called Denouement: The Last Day, which demands rarer gear and careful coordination to beat.
Smilegate also plans progression events to help new players and alts catch up, a Mokoko bootcamp, and a fresh set of daily activity updates to keep players busy through December. The developer says December will be used to roll out these quality-of-life changes alongside the usual holiday cosmetics, but it hasn’t listed specifics yet.
The annoying but essential bit is the server merge. Smilegate will combine NA East and NA West one week before the major October update. That merge will produce significant downtime, and if two players share the same username across the regions, a tiebreaker will decide who keeps it. The tiebreaker first considers the player with the highest combat level on their roster, and if that’s still tied, the account that created the name earlier wins. The developer says it will also release additional names from inactive accounts later this year or early next year.
For the full details, the Lost Ark roadmap for 2025 is available on the official site.
These roadmap changes matter most to endgame players chasing raid gear and to anyone on NA East or West who wants to keep their character name. Share your thoughts in the comments, and follow us on X and Bluesky.
