On June 12, 2022, as part of the Bethesda/XBox Showcase, ARK: Survival Evolved 2 (Now Just ARK 2) was pushed back to 2023 with a new trailer. Much more exciting, however, is the developer's official forum post, which presents some details about ARK 2. So it will be different from what you are used to from the first part, and that's a good thing!
Here's what's going on: ARK 2 was pushed back to 2023 last night. There is still no exact date, but we suspect the release will take place in the first half of the year. This was even confirmed by Xbox, as it was often said during the show that all games shown will be released in the next 12 months. So until June 2023.
And even if there was a new, very short, and rather disappointing teaser trailer for fans, the developers have presented significantly more details to the public in the official forum and on their new Steam page. And this information is fascinating!
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If you think ARK 2 will be like ARK: Survival Evolved just prettier and hopefully with better performance, you're wrong. Of course, the basic framework remains the same. ARK 2 will also be an open-world survival sandbox game where you can tame dinosaurs, collect resources, and craft items. But it's the details that make ARK 2 better, and we think it's a good change.
In contrast to ARK: Survival Evolved, where the actually exciting story is only told via in-game notes, there will probably be a real story in ARK 2.
The basic story known so far is quickly explained: The rest of the surviving humanity was transported to a new planet called Arat in ARK 2, since the earth has been lost to a "war in the stars". However, no one knows how that happened. But not only humans but also other creatures, such as the well-known dinosaurs, were brought to Arat. There you should team up with legendary heroes, including Santiago (played by Vin Diesel) to fight against dark forces.
But Santiago is actually dead. At least in the story of ARK: Survival Evolved. Since the ARKs are basically clone machines, a clone of Santiago could have survived with his spirit. Because apparently Santiago knows what the TEK technology is all about, which could be seen in a ruin in the first trailer.
So far, the character of Vin Diesel and his in-game daughter, voiced by Auli'l Cravalho (Moana), has played an important role in the trailers. We suspect that you will see her more often in the game as a client.
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Officially, ARK 2 will only be playable in the third-person perspective, but mods can adjust this on private servers or in local play. It's just a small change that probably won't cause much of a stir.
The situation is different with the combat, movement, and crafting system, which we will explain to you in detail in another article as soon as more information is known. However, it is currently known that the combat system is based on Souls-Likes. So you'll be able to actively dodge, block, and parry instead of just moving and spamming the attack button. Wildcard mentions the following activities:
The movements throughout the world are also significantly improved:
We can already imagine how players who have internalized and perfected these movements and the combat system can easily destroy whole groups of players in PvP.
The crafting system is a monster: The crafting system for making items from the various resources is already not exactly small in ARK: Survival Evolved, but manageable thanks to fixed recipes. The new edition really tops that.
The component-based crafting system allows you to craft weapons and tools from a variety of different modules to customize appearance and functionality. Specific materials, which you can only find in certain regions, also change the design and functionality of the crafted item. According to Wildcard, this should create millions of possibilities. MILLIONS! That's an announcement.
The alien planet Arat defies only so dangers. Both the flora and the fauna want you dead. Nevertheless, in contrast to ARK 1, the world offers new exciting features:
Further details from the developers on ARK 2 include a few sentences on the skill system, building templates, and modding.
So you can see that ARK 2 already has much better approaches than the first part. Thanks to the support from Microsoft and the switch to Unreal Engine 5, performance should also make a significant leap. However, it is not yet possible to say for sure.
