Bad news for those who expected to be able to play ARK 2 in a few months. With a substantial statement, Studio Wildcard has formalized a significant postponement of the release date of the game. And there are also important news for the predecessor, ARK: Survival Evolved.

Let's start with the news about ARK 2. The release of the new chapter of the lucky prehistoric survival has long remained expected at an unspecified time of this 2023, but unfortunately this will not be the case: the publication of the game has been postponed to the end of 2024, a decidedly important slip forward.
At the base of this decision, the choice of the Studio to push as much as possible on the adoption of the Unreal Engine 5, with the need therefore to have more time to deepen its use and review in this sense the realization processes of the Studio, without excessively aggravating the expected workloads.

With this important commitment in front of it, Studio Wildcard has also decided to make the transition to the latest version of Unreal Engine also of the previous ARK: Survival Evolved.
Thanks to this choice, the development team expects to have an important test bench to try their hand at UE5 (this remaster will fully use the Engine, exploiting its Lumen, Nanite and RT modules).
For this new version of the game, called ARK: Survival Ascended, the wait will instead be relatively short, being scheduled for August 2023, and it is therefore clear that behind this strategy there is also the intention to propose to its users something substantial with which to deceive the wait for the second episode. However, this is not "only" a port to UE5, since ARK: Survival Ascended will offer new features (for example total support for cross-platform multiplayer) and will integrate the additional content The Island, Scorched Earth and Survival Of The Fittest, the latter proposed in a widely revised and updated version, which will be edited and updated by a dedicated team even after the publication of the game.

At the expense of this operation will be the original version of ARK: Survival Evolved, whose support will officially end in conjunction with the release of ARK: Survival Ascended: this means that the new updates will be limited to cases of critical bugs and above all that the dedicated servers will cease to work to this version of the game to make room for those prepared for the new version (the final server saves will be made available to users and it will still be possible to continue playing in single-player),

The marketing methods proposed by Studio Wildcard are particular. Initially the only possibility will be to buy the ARK Respawned Bundle, which includes ARK: Survival Ascended and the pre-order of ARK 2, at the total price of $ 49.99: certainly convenient if you are interested in owning both titles (on PlayStation, where the release of ARK 2 is not currently planned, the only ARK: Survival Ascended will sell for $39.99), although we remind you that the inclusion of ARK 2 in the Xbox Game Pass from the day of launch of the game is still confirmed.
The two titles will then become available for purchase separately during 2024, presumably on the occasion of the publication of the second episode.