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The decision to release premium DLC for Ark: Survival Evolved while the main game remains in Early Access is consistent with realising the game’s early vision.
That’s according to developer Studio Wildcard, which has reacted to the disquiet that greeted its recent announcement of the 15 Scorched Earth expansion.
We are absolutely committed to driving aggressive development towards a solid, feature-robust game launch for Ark: Survival Evolved,” a statement said. Everyone at Wildcard wakes up every day thinking about how we can make Ark into a better game today than it was the day before.
It’s not always easy, but our intent is ever-forward progress towards a retail release that will be far more ambitious in scope and features than our original vision when we launched Ark into Steam Early Access in June 2015.
Our original vision for Ark always included the creation of Expansion Arks, along with the infrastructure and technical systems to transfer data dynamically between live Arks. We determined that it is more sound to iterate on these systems during Early Access than after retail launch, given the significant risks involved if we didn’t ‘get it right’.
While that meant unveiling the first expansion early, it also means an easier time integrating further post-launch expansions into the Ark network. We understand that this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and we appreciate the enjoyment people seem to be getting out of this initial view of how expansion Arks can work.
Now that we have the systems in place to support them, we can ensure minimal integration issues with subsequent releases after Ark: Survival Evolved itself has launched.”
