Lost Ark’s Battle For The Throne Of Chaos update introduces the Glaivier class today

Smilegate’s formerly mega-popular RPG Lost Ark receives its April update, the dramatic sounding Battle For The Throne Of Chaos today, bringing with it a new class, continent and a rewards system for those who love the grind.

Glaivier is the new advanced class and she’s proper into orchestral djent judging by the trailer. The Glaivier features two skill sets, Focus and Flurry, linked to one of the ridiculously huge pointy sticks she wields: spear for fast attacks in Focus and glaive for sweeping hits in Flurry. Smilegate say a successful Glaivier can maximize their effectiveness by building up energy with one skill set for a stat boost when swapping to the other. It looks like she can really tear things up with superfast twizzles and dazzly stabbiness.

Battle For The Throne Of Chaos is spreading out to the watery and verdant continent of South Vern. It’s got big Ferelden energy. You’ll need an item level of 1340 to kick things off there – I’ve never tackled Lost Ark so that sounds pretty high to me. It definitely seems like things are about to kick off too, with Smilegate promising the region’s storyline will conclude in a battle “with the power to shift the future of Arkesia”. Presumably to the tune of much djent.

Anyone grinding their way through Lost Ark will nab rewards through the new Ark Passes just by playing, with missions granting levels and, in turn, stuff like honing material chests, pirate coins and mounts. The regular Ark Pass is a freebie but there are Premium and Super Premium paid levels available until June.

Along with all that, there are progression events running from today until June 30th, and express missions meant to catch newer players up with their pals. Expect some store updates and new skin sets too, which make characters look a bit like they’re attending a very tacky wedding.

Ed gave Lost Ark a go when it started blowing up in the West a few months ago, deciding it was similar to gray carpet. “Lost Ark is swimming with characters who exist to give you things to do, but it is so much gray loop pile. Androids that deliver their lines and enter standby,” he said. Rick Lane thought differently, singing out Lost Ark’s Tortoyk island as the point when the game becomes “less of a Diablo knockoff and more like an ARPG Mario”.

Lost Ark is free to play on Steam. Downtime for the update started at 12am PDT/8am BST and should last about eight hours. If you want to take a look at the full list of general changes and bug fixes then head to the April update release notes.