Lost Ark has come under fire for its sexualization of characters before, but fans are pretty outraged by the armor progression system for the game’s Sorceress Advanced Class.
While Lost Ark continues to shatter records across the globe, Smilegate’s dungeon crawler adventure has sparked intense debate over the sexualization of its characters.
With the game’s female inhabitants often dressed in revealing armor sets and NPCs sporting over-exaggerated feminine features, many have argued that the overtly sexual class design has somewhat ruined their experience.
Among the game’s female-only Advanced Classes is the spell slinging Sorceress, whose armor progression system has been criticized by some avid hack and slash enthusiasts for being “terrible.”
Lost Ark players slam “terrible” Sorceress armor
As you make your way though the vibrant landscapes of Arkesia, you will acquire swathes of class-specific gear to help you transform your character into a one person army.
Split into Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, and Artifact, it seems like the higher your item level, the less clothing is actually involved.
“Sorceress gear progression for ‘pants,'” writes one fan on the game’s official subreddit, attaching an image of different gear sets in ascending order. As their item level increases, the pants grow forever smaller in length, going from shorts to a simple pair of panties.
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Jokingly writing that Level 1000 will see the character wearing nothing but a rope-style belt, the fun image has set the comments section ablaze.
“As a new player leveling a Sorceress I fully expect to get to the end game and be handed 2 bandaids and a cork for armor,” writes one player.
Another notes “tbh for me its not even the fact it looks bad, it just makes my character look and feel trashy. Most of the gear I’m getting while leveling is skimpy as sh*t for no reason.”
A final comment concludes “the tier 1 gear for Sorceress is terrible. Skimpiness aside, it’s so boring/ugly. I seriously think they made it that way just to sell more skins. And it worked for me, no way I was going to run around in that eyesore of an outfit.”
As Lost Ark continues to evolve in the West, it’ll be interesting to see whether or not Smilegate make some amendments to the game’s rather revealing armor sets. Until then, though, we’ll need to get used to seeing our characters flaunt what they’ve got.