Studio Wildcard today launched ARK: Survival Ascended (ASA), a next-generation remake of the beloved ARK: Survival Evolved game, onto PlayStation®5. Developed in partnership with Grove Street Games and Instinct Games, this epic clash between console and PC Survivors has begun with ASA‘s new cross-platform multiplayer capabilities. Survivors can now form online tribes across different gaming platforms and work together to survive on the ARK.
Since the October launch of ASA on Steam and Xbox Series X|S more than 1 million gross copies have been sold worldwide. Survivors on PlayStation 5 can now jump into freshly launched official servers with increased rates to welcome them onto the Island.
For the first time ever, ARK mods crafted on PC will run on consoles versions of ASA, with more than 250 mods now available for cross-platform play, and many more added every day. Everything from new weapons, armor, and creatures to fully-fledged game modes and high-quality maps are now easily available to both PC and console players through a dedicated Mod-browser found directly within the game. To view all the mods available visit the official home of ARK: Survival Ascended mods on the CurseForge page.
- Watch the ARK: Survival Ascended announcement trailer HERE, and a spotlight trailer featuring some of the cross-platform mods now available for console HERE.
- Download ASA media assets HERE.
Every week new ARK mods are added to console! To celebrate this CurseForge has launched ARKathon, a massive ARK: Survival Ascended modding contest where individual modders and studios can create and publish ARK: Survival Ascended mods for a chance to win big with $350,000 in rewards. Create captivating new maps, dinos, structures, and more!
On Saturday, December 2nd at 10:00AM PT, Studio Wildcard will be going live from its Seattle office for its annual Extra Life livestream featuring 24 hours of entertainment, amazing giveaways, plushies, and much more! During the continuous broadcast the Wildcard developers will collectively raise donations for this incredible cause. On the Studio Wildcard Extra Life Team page, you can donate to the cause or join our fundraising team.
ARK: Survival Ascended harnesses the cutting-edge power of Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) for huge improvements and enhancements to the visuals and gameplay. ARK‘s codebase has been fully rewritten, and its artwork recreated by hand to take full advantage of UE5.
ASA includes free access to all of ARK‘s worlds, including Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, ARK Genesis
Part 1, and ARK Genesis Part 2! With today’s launch on PlayStation 5, The Island is available with subsequent expansion worlds to be added on a regular basis. ASA will have its own content roadmap, including gameplay/QOL changes, new DLC, seasonal events, and more.
NEW FEATURES INCLUDE:
- Unreal Engine 5 Delivers:
- Nanite mesh rendering allows incredibly high-detail assets directly within the game, which gets scaled and streamed onto the graphics processor in real-time, tremendously increasing the visual fidelity of ASA. This delivers more environmental details, including realistic rocky textures, accurate tree patterning, and flourishing fauna.
- With fully dynamic “Lumen”, light now bounces realistically off of hundreds of millions of triangles for extreme detail.
- Chaos, a physics destruction system, simulates large-scale destruction in real-time. Blasting a base with a rocket launcher has never looked more realistic!
- Building Revamp: ASA has revamped building systems so players can construct the bases of their dreams with over 15 new structures, from tilesets to decor to gameplay-enhancing TEK Teleporters, combined with QOL improvements like structure snappoint improvements, raising/lowering foundations, to provide players with a lot more choice and reliability when constructing their bases!
- Ascended Physics System: Dynamic water so every creature creates waves, ripples, splashes, and bubbles as they move through fluids, and fully interactive physical foliage where every blade of grass, bush, and tree reacts to characters, explosions, projectiles, and physics objects. Knock down a tree and see it crash into other trees and disturb foliage on its way down to smacking into the grass below it! Demolish a building and watch the pieces break apart realistically, interacting with the grass and water as they fall.
- Extensive QOL and Gameplay Improvements: Thorough Quality of Life revamps in every area: redesigned User Interfaces, dynamic navigation for intelligent creature pathfinding, new Camera and Map systems, Dino Tracking System, Wild babies, added Structures and Items, and much more.
- Cross-Platform Modding: Download and play new custom content created by players, including new maps, creatures, items, and game modes, through a dedicated Mod-browser found directly within the game! Enjoy an endless stream of ARK content as the creativity and talent of the community are fully unleashed for the first time ever across gaming platforms! Through Overwolf’s CurseForge platform, mod authors are already building out exciting new content for ARK‘s fanbase, including more dinosaurs, structures and weapons, while game developers such as Blue Isle Studios and Skymap Games are creating DLC-level Premium Mods.
- Cross-Platform Multiplayer: Form online tribes across different gaming platforms and work together to survive and thrive on the ARK!
- Multiplayer Options: Supports public online multiplayer for up to 70 players, private-session multiplayer for up to 8 players, and local split-screen for 2 or 4 players.
- Photo Mode: Use the built-in capabilities to share epic screenshots and thumbnails with friends. With a deep dropdown menu of settings, you can get the perfect shots of your favorite dino, put on your director’s hat, and start filming the ARK movies you envisioned!
The definitive survival experience returns better than ever! Create a Survivor, form a tribe, and then tame, train, breed & ride dinosaurs within a living ecosystem. Monitor your food, water, temperature, and weather patterns. Slowly expand outwards, then start to harvest, build structures, farm crops, customize each visual design, and proceed to explore to uncover the true nature of The Island and the worlds beyond.
ARK: Survival Ascended is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S Windows PC and Steam for $44.99.
For the latest updates, join the ARK Survivor’s conversation on Discord, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, subscribe to us on YouTube, visit our website at playark.com and watch us tame ‘n train leviathan dinosaurs on Twitch.TV.
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ABOUT STUDIO WILDCARD
Founded in 2014 by industry veterans Jeremy Stieglitz and Jesse Rapczak, Studio Wildcard’s mission is to bring AAA quality to ambitious indie titles designed for core gamers. The team emphasizes direct communication with its active community, implements player feedback into its fast, iterative dev cycle, and provides tools to drive user-generated content. Studio Wildcard includes distributed developers across multiple continents, as wherever talented developers reside, Wildcard seeks them out! www.studiowildcard.com
ABOUT GROVE STREET GAMES
Located in Gainesville, FL, Grove Street Games has been an influential game developer since 2007. They have delighted fans of the world’s greatest games with bold interpretations on new platforms, and have delivered fresh and original games to millions of happy players. They have grown to be a leader in the industry because of their commitment to building incredible and accessible gaming experiences. Their games can be found worldwide across all major gaming devices, including consoles, PC, and mobile. www.grovestreetgames.com
ABOUT INSTINCT GAMES
Founded in 2011, Instinct Games is Egypt’s leading game development studio. Here at Instinct Games we aim to develop and produce high quality games on all major platforms utilizing our competent team.
Our dream is to build the video game development ecosystem in Egypt to set precedence by creating unique high quality games with worldwide appeal.