Studio Wildcard has unveiled a completely new way to survive the dinosaur-filled landscape of their game ARK: Survival Evolved. The new “Survival of the Fittest” mode introduces a brand new last man standing, fight-to-the-permadeath contest, designed to create a completely new dynamic in the world of ARK.
Starting at 9pm EST/12 pm PST, on Saturday, August 1, 2015, Studio Wildcard’s Kayd Hendricks and Twitch’s Alex “Goldenboy” Mendez will host a live five-hour tournament to debut ‘Survival of the Fittest’ from Twitch headquarters in San Francisco, CA. Thirty-five teams will step into the ARK arena to compete in this PvP ‘Hunger Games’-style deathmatch where the last tribe standing will receive a Grand Prize of $20,000, along with killer gaming gear from Logitech and Gunnar Optiks.
During the event, the Twitch audience can vote on Evolution Events – powerful world-altering sequences that will occur every 30 minutes (Freak Weather, Dino Assault, Supply Drop, etc.). Alex and Kayd will deliver play-by-play and color commentary of the action from a roaming spectator point-of-view, with both pre- and post-interviews from fallen warriors as they exit the battle. For those interested, you can download Survival of the Fittest poster artwork HERE.
As for the new Survival of the Fittest Mode, contestants begin in a neutral staging area where they can communicate pre-game, strategize, or talk trash. After a count-down, they dramatically descend from the sky onto the ARK in a circular formation via beams of light. There is a cache of valuable items in the center – so survivors have a choice to make: do they dash for the goods and fight it out, do they run into the forest and hide, or do they freeze up from the sheer terror of death? A continually shrinking “ring of death” forces contestants ever closer together over time.
The most popular open-world Early Access game on Steam, ARK: Survival Evolved brings a new level of depth to the survival genre with a blend of emergent multiplayer cooperation and competition. Players awake naked and starving on the beach of a mysterious island among a herd of other confused humans and must explore the vast island of ARK to survive.
Developed by Studio Wildcard, in conjunction with Instinct Games, ARK: Survival Evolved will launch in June 2016 on Xbox One via the ID@Xbox program, PS4 with Project Morpheus support, and full release on Steam. The game is currently in Steam’s Early Access program and includes Oculus Rift VR support and an integration of Steam community features such as Steam Economy and Steam Workshop for custom maps and mods.
Players can host private/LAN servers and have access to a custom-built version of the Unreal Engine 4 Editor for creating mods. In the words of the devs, the world of ARK is designed to be modder-friendly and ever-expanding.
Interested? Then journey over to Steam to download the game. For more info on the game itself, visit the Website at www.playark.com.
SOURCE: Studio Wildcard Press Release