Ark 2: release date, platforms, price and everything we know so far

Ark 2 is coming, and with its planned release date approaching fast, we wanted to gather everything we know so far about the dino-packed dive into Arat and its denizens.

Ark: Survival Evolved is widely regarded as one of the best survival games out there and despite being released in 2017, still commands an average player count of over 20,000 in a month, with peaks of over twice that. Just last year the then-six-year-old game was in the top 50 games sold in Japan. To say that excitement for the sequel is high would be an understatement.

When is Ark 2 being released?

Players have been waiting for a long time for the game – it was announced at the Game Awards in 2020 to much fanfare with a cinematic trailer that had people hyped for the planned release date of 2022.

However, after two years of no further news, the development team Studio Wildcard pushed the release to 2023, and then took the tricky decision to push it back even further.

Currently, the planned release window for early access is late 2024. This was confirmed to still be the plan in late 2023 by Jim Tsai, the CEO of Snail Games, a studio supporting Studio Wildcard on the development of Ark 2, when he spoke at a business conference.

Given that it is currently August 2024 and new info from the developers is thin on the ground, there’s a chance of a further delay, but we remain hopeful.

There was some excitement that we’d finally get a look at some gameplay at GamesCom after it was listed as a playable game by an official Xbox post. However, it was later edited to remove it with a note saying “Editor’s Note: ARK 2 was originally listed as playable on the Xbox booth – this mention was made in error, and has been removed,” which is not very reassuring.

What platforms will Ark 2 be on?

According to Studio Wildcard, when Ark 2 is finally released, it will be on PC, Xbox, and GamePass. We don’t know yet whether it will be a day-one GamePass release or if it will come later to the subscription service.

We also don’t know if it will remain an Xbox exclusive for a long time, or if it will see PlayStation or Switch releases relatively quickly.

Ark 2 will star Vin Diesel

Yes, that Vin Diesel. It turns out he’s quite the fan of Ark: Survival Evolved, having racked up thousands of hours in the dinosaur survival title, according to a press release issued by Studio Wildcard.

As well as playing the hero in the game’s main story plot, Santiago, a clone of the player character from the first game, Diesel will be taking on the role of Executive Producer and “President of Creative Convergence”, whatever that means.

It does seem to be the case that Diesel is passionate and invested in the game, having earned shoutouts on social media by the developers for reporting bugs in the game.

.@vindiesel reported this btw