Steam Early Access version due in June, Morpheus support confirmed
ARK: Survival Evolved aims to turn Jurassic Park into an open-world PvP game for PC, Mac, Linux, PS4 and Xbox One.
While not technically based on Michael Crichton's best-selling novel, the premise is similar: You're modern day hunters in a land full of dinosaurs. Also, you can ride them. What more do you need to know?
Studio Wildcard has offered quite a lot of details for those looking to whet their appetites. As detailed on the PlayStation Blog, ARK will feature "a fully persistent game world, tens of thousands of AI entities, totally destructible foliage and environment, and multiplayer on a huge scale."
The developer plans to launch the game with over 60 different species of dinosaurs and a fleshed out ecosystem in which they'll freely roam around the world and eat each other. Furthermore, the dinosaurs can be trained so you can ride them or unleash them upon your enemies.
ARK is being developer with VR in mind, though it will be fully playable without it. Moprheus support is confirmed and Studio Wildcard's founder and technical wizard Jesse Rapczak explained, "Just like mouse versus gamepad, you have to design with VR in mind from the beginning. All of your testing, all of your gameplay elements, they need to tie into the experience of wearing a VR headset, the different FOV, the perception of motion and presence that exists between looking at a flat computer screen and virtually 'being there.'"
"In the end we don't just 'allow' for VR, we recommend it, and ARK is a richer game because of it."
ARK will launch on PC, Mac and Linux via Steam Early Access in June, where it plans to have over 30 dinosaurs ready at the off. For more information, check out ARK's Steam page.
Now watch those dinos go in ARK's debut trailer:
