Early-access darling Ark: Survival Evolved is nearing completion. Studio Wildcard told Kotaku that it will finally give the game a proper launch on August 8 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, with an Xbox One X version coming on November 7. It will even have two collector’s editions.
Wildcard is also adding the fan favourite mod map Ragnarok, created by player Excited Kangaroo, to its official map roster on Steam today, and to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 within the next few weeks. Ragnarok’s arrival marks the first fruits of Wildcard’s Sponsored Mods Program, an initiative set up to offer financial support to those mods that sufficiently impress the studio.
Ragnarok spans 144 square kilometres, which should please those that find Ark‘s default Island map a little suffocating in scale. It promises unique Explorer Notes, an active volcano, dungeons, unique bosses, alternate versions of existing Ark critters, and an entirely new creature of its own. There are also unique biomes to explore, including caves, ruins, hot springs, and a “future” desert — which I’m assuming means that it won’t be included in the initial release.
“After Ark‘s release in August, we have a pretty long road-map of post-launch content planned, including expansion ARKs, and also base game additions beyond the scope of our original goals, including new creatures, mechanics and vehicles along the lines of the newly-added Tek ATV,” Ark lead designer Jeremy Stieglitz told Kotaku.
When Ark officially launches on August 8, potential purchasers will have a lot of options. You can buy it digitally on all platforms, or nab a physical disc — though Australian pricing and availability has not yet been confirmed, in the US it will run you $US60 ($80). A $US100 ($133) “Explorer’s Edition” contains the game’s Season Pass, which grants access to Ark‘s already released desert-themed Scorched Earth expansion, plus two more full-scale, top-secret future expansions — one due later this year and the other in 2018.
Finally, the $US160 ($212) Limited Collector’s Edition packs the base game, all free content, the Season Pass, a leather-bound Explorer’s Notebook featuring the dossiers of every in-game creature, a necklace, a cloth map of the Island, the game’s soundtrack, and a poster of everyone on Wildcard’s development team — which seems like a bit of an odd thing to hang on your wall unless you’re directly related to them, but who am I to judge?
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15 responses to “Ark: Survival Evolved Comes Out August 8, With Collector’s Editions”
Im a bit disappointed that they are launching a new DLC this year when you consider the state the base game is in.
I feel like they should have all hands on deck getting that squared away before thinking about selling more DLC.
The Ragnarok map just went official, that’s their new DLC. That’s also a pretty kickass map. Bigger than the others, new creatures, new features and areas and all free. It’s pretty damn good for a free deal. The Gryphon alone makes it worth it 😀
The game goes official August 8, the game itself already has an astounding amount of content, while I do agree selling the original Scorched Earth was questionable, it did allow them the ability to complete more of the game and didn’t resort to having to kickstart or anything, plus it hasn’t affected people in the sense that it’s not *required* to play at this point.
As for the state the base games in, I consistently get 70+ fps on ultra detail on an i5 6600k, 16gb ram and a 1070 card running 1920×1080. In that sense it’s running pretty fine. It’s still got some issues but each regular patch is seeing issues ironed out quickly, we aren’t talking DayZ style progress here, we’re seeing major patches every 3 – 4 weeks with ARK so I think some credit is due to Wildcard here. Infact, I’d actually posit that ARK is one of the few examples of early access done right.
Further question, your statement about the current state of the game, do you base that on current play experience, previous or just what you’ve heard, I’m curious?
How many hours have you put in now @weresmurf? I think I put in another 30 in singleplayer (I think roughly 500 total, most from Vanilla release) after Scorched Earth came out, but it’s a bit of a drag without anyone else to play with.
Kinda tempted to get it on Console and play with a bunch of mates.
Shamefully around 2200 I think lol. Yeah I’m biased, it’s my favorite game, but I also see the faults it has (clipping, some physics issues etc) but the old line about the game being ‘broken’ is well in the past. It’s come leaps and bounds from where it was. Playing the Ragnarok map last night, holy shit that maps amazing, showing how the game deserves to look and feel, rather than ‘The Island’, where everythings tiny and cramped, Ragnarok presents you with lands of rolling fields, vegetables that grow wild, everything. It is a drag to play by yourself, 100% agree. My mates and I will be getting our own server soon as we’re tired of never being able to find one to play on and going from there. (Well, I’ll be paying, I don’t mind that part.)
Nice! Yeah it’s a huge difference. I feel like I’ve played Ragnarok before, if it was on the Workshop earlier this / later last year. It is a great map if it’s the one I am thinking of.
If/when you do get your own server let me know, I could be interested in joining!
Taken a bit of a break but with all the new content I might have to look at getting back into it. Have really enjoyed ark though
add me on the steams!
Will do when possible, same moniker as your name here?
spot on, except my steam guy has a DOOM logo
I ran a server from home for quite a while, id be willing to put it back up if there was enough interest
Yerp! What kind of connection have you got?
100/100 symmetrical fibre connection. The caveats of working for a fibre optics distributor 🙂
server is an 6 core i7 with 32gb ram and SSD… its also dedicated, no VM’s or bullshit.
So………marry me? I mean I’m male, so Australia doesn’t allow it yet, but you dont WANT to know what I’d do for that setup and connection :O
you’re more than welcome to join us! we play on 151 weve all got hundreds/some thousand+ hours in the game and have tamed some serious stuff in the past, including gigas, etc… add me on steam if interested. weve only been on for about 2 weeks on this server.
I mostly mean in terms of things like framerate and bugs like corpses falling through the world.
I ended up buying a GTX 1080 so I could play the game at 60+ fps because it was just horrendous once you had built a base on my 290x. I believe the game just runs smoother on Nvidia though so you may not notice it very much.
Ragnarok does look amazing and i’m excited to give it a go when its finished!
I wish u could just buy the leather book and necklace from the collectors edition because I already have the game but I still want those