Bad news if you were expecting to play ARK 2 during this 2023. This week they announced another delay in the launch of ARK2, which will not reach players at least until the end of 2024. Developers want to deliver the best possible product and use the new features offered by the Unreal 5 engine.
ARK 2 will feature a more serious topic than the previous ARK: Survival Evolved and will offer a fight of soulsIn addition to having only primitive weaponsand mechanical third person.
After careful consideration, we have decided to delay the release of the sequel. until the end of 2024when it will continue to be released exclusively in Xbox, Game Pass and Windows (Steam/PC) distribution platforms. We put a lot of thought into delaying ARK 2 to improve the end product and the welfare of the team. This news will disappoint many – we are also sorry for that – but we are convinced that this difficult decision is the right one.
Why the delay? Our goal is to make ARK 2 the best game it can be and to provide players with a truly exceptional and rewarding experience. Unreal Engine 5 is incredibly new technology for us (and for all developers), and our goal is to use this cutting-edge technology to its full potential while creating a game with a reach never before achieved in Studio Wildcard. As we learn more about the engine and develop the suite, we’ve adapted our workflows and adjusted our pipelines to accommodate this new next-gen paradigm, and because of all that this implies, we need more development time.
We sincerely apologize for this delay and sincerely appreciate your understanding. Your support and passion are vital to us, and we will continue to work hard to bring you the best next-gen dinosaur survival experience. With that in mind, we don’t plan to show any ARK 2 gameplay, images or videos this year; however, we intend to keep you informed and engaged in the development process by steadily showing more of ARK 2 in the coming months, until we can deliver the game next year.
Our desire to push the boundaries of ARK 2 on a next-gen platform led us to the decision to create an intermediate product for ARK with Unreal Engine 5 using some of the new technology we are developing, which gives us will deepen our knowledge. of the new engine and ultimately test some of our most daring technical advances in combat. We’ll take an in-depth look at how the console’s rendering and lighting techniques work, performance, if we can optimize and deliver interactive water and foliage at scale, and much more. We will be featuring cross-platform modding, cross-platform multiplayer, and a new account system, which will let us know what other changes we should consider for ARK 2. Due to the scope of all the technical and quality of life changes required for a next-gen experience, it is not possible to make this new version of ARK backwards compatible, leading us to conclude that it should be a standalone product.
We are also aware that ARK 2 has some pretty significant design changes. compared to the original game, which may not make it as appealing to everyone (looking at you, Souls-like combat, primitive weaponry and strict third-person mechanics, and an overall “very serious” tone), we So we believe giving players a completely next-gen version of the original experience is key to ensuring fans can continue to enjoy the ARK they know for years to come.