Ark 2 dev gives us an exclusive update on its ambitious but MIA survival game

With pushbacks, missed deadlines, and a long period of radio silence, more than a few questions loom large over Ark 2. An ambitious sequel to Ark Survival Evolved and its enhanced remaster, Survival Ascended, its most recent release window came and went without any new information emerging. However, speaking exclusively to PCGamesN, Studio Wildcard has revealed what's been going on with Ark 2, its current status, and a rough timeline for when it hopes to get it in your hands.

Whether you're an Ark veteran, a fan of any of the picks on our best survival games list, or just a gamer with one eye on the news, Ark 2 and its flashy, Vin Diesel-led trailers have no doubt blipped on your radar. First announced back in December 2020, it was set to launch sometime in 2022. Then, its second cinematic trailer pushed the Ark 2 release date window back to 2023. It then got another delay into 2024, which was subsequently narrowed down to 'late 2024,' but that target passed with fans none the wiser about its whereabouts. However, in an interview with Studio Wildcard co-founders Jesse Rapczak and Jeremy Stieglitz, I learned more about the sequel and why it's still MIA.

Prior to the launch of Ark Survival Ascended, Stieglitz says that the studio had "a pretty cool vertical slice" of Ark 2, "but we felt that as a team, it would be very difficult to follow that all the way through to a complete game with both our experience level and [our scope] as a company." In need of a way to master Unreal Engine 5 and test out new technologies and ideas for Ark 2, Survival Ascended was born, and the majority of Wildcard's workforce has been dedicated to supporting it since.

"We put the vertical slice on hold a couple of years ago to make ASA, and we've been only nibbling at it since then," Stieglitz says. "A small portion of our team continues to refine the mechanics of [Ark 2's] combat… It's very difficult to do soulslike combat in a multiplayer PvP context. You could probably count the number of games on one hand that have even attempted that in an actual PvP context."

Soulslike-inspired combat was just one of the core innovations already confirmed for Ark 2, alongside dynamic world events, a switch to a third-person perspective, and a traversal system with slick climbing and parkour elements. Rapczak and Stieglitz assure me that all of these previously revealed features remain part of the vision. That's a mountain of work, and given that the majority of the company is still tied to ASA, it's going to take a lot more time to realize it.

Stieglitz estimates that it would take roughly "18 months of hardcore team focus to [turn] that vertical slice into an early access game, when we get to put the vast majority of our team back on it." Later in our conversation, he predicts that the game could be in your hands (in an early access state) "hopefully within the next two years." However, he says that Studio Wildcard is still trying to find the right time to shift its resources off of ASA and onto Ark 2.

"We need to figure out how we kind of optimize all those resources to continue to generate the revenue to get all the way to the finish line with Ark 2, but also free up enough development resources to make Ark 2 at the exact same time," he tells me.

Stieglitz also explains how advancements in tech and innovations in other games constantly move the goalposts, with Studio Wildcard wanting Ark 2's suite of mechanics and systems to be industry-leading. "Occasionally you'll see a game come out where it's actually quite solid, but it feels like it's two or three years behind the curve," he says. "You just feel like 'man, if this had been released four years ago, it would have been a huge hit.' You don't want to be that game."

However, he's not concerned that the long development of the sequel is going to harm it. Ark 2 is already in the top ten most-wished games on Steam. The franchise has a lot of star power to draw from, thanks not only to the ambassadorial Vin Diesel but the illustrious cast of the animated series. There are opportunities to keep Ark fans' interest alive, such as with the upcoming Lost Colony expansion for Survival Ascended, which will set up Ark 2's narrative stakes. "We feel like we've got one shot to really make this what people [want] and what we are expecting it to be. We want to do it right."

As mentioned, Wildcard is committed to keeping all of its previously announced features in Ark 2 and isn't shrinking its ambitions due to its so-far bumpy development. I ask whether it has expanded its scope since it first revealed its plans for the sequel, and Stieglitz shares a couple of tidbits with me.

"Ark 2 has to have NPC antagonists, because that's been implied by the trailer and has been part of our design for quite some time as an opposing force, so to speak," he says. "We feel that could add a lot more threat level to the environment and the feeling of being able to enjoy a PvP-like experience, even without [fighting against other players]."

He also describes in-game UGC support as a "must-have" for Ark 2 at launch. "I'd like to maybe integrate a lot more UGC concepts seamlessly under the hood while you're playing the game, to make it more seamless and not like you have to browse a boring menu, [so you can] stay more in the game… I would never, ever launch a survival game without UGC, and I would never launch a cross-platform game without UGC at this point."

While it's great to finally get an update on Ark 2, the fact that it could still be another two years or so before it launches will be hard to hear for some. I must say that I personally expected Ark 2 to be further along and commanding more resources than it currently is, but it seems Studio Wildcard isn't ready to take a big step away from Survival Ascended just yet.

Keep your eyes peeled for more from my chat with Rapczak and Stieglitz over the coming days, where they'll also be talking about the last ten years of Ark and what's to come in Survival Ascended's Lost Colony expansion later this year. You can also head to our lists of the best dinosaur games and best co-op games for some Ark-style experiences.