I mean, all you can do is laugh, right? You’ve probably already guessed at what based on the headline, but we’ll dig a little deeper into this all the same. Yes, Ark 2 has been delayed, the same Ark 2 that was revealed almost exactly five years ago, that was at one point in time promised to release in 2023, and then 2024, and then sort of half-heartedly slated for 2027, before landing where we are now, with the news that the game is currently planned for release in 2028. Uhuh!
This comes from an interview with Studio Wildcard co-founder Jeremy Stieglitz over on the Epic Games Store blog (stop stealing our thing, Mr. Sweeney. “One of the things about doing ARK 2 was that we felt we had to learn a lot more about how to make the kind of game we wanted to do, and to do it kind of in phases,” Stieglitz said of the delay. “Learning about both the technology and the mechanics seemed, to us, safer than to just try to go and release a whole standalone product called ARK 2.”
The studio founder spoke of how an expansion for Ark: Survival Ascended due for release in 2027, Legacy of Santiago, will introduce a number of combat mechanics that are planned for Ark 2, like its Soulsian third-person combat, but “it’s not going to have all this like crazy narrative world build out content that we want to do with Ark 2.”
Speaking of that narrative, it frankly, sounds like a mess. Stieglitz shared that they have a “much more ambitious narrative built out for Ark 2,” but noted that, bafflingly, “it’s really going to be highly dependent on just how involved Vin Diesel is actually going to be, which is still an open question.”
He goes on to note that they currently do not know how many days, or even hours, they’re going to get with the Fast & Furious actor. “The scope of how much performance we are going to get determines just how the narrative is going to play out. We have a narrative that’s if we get a lot of Vin Diesel, this is what we will do, and if we get a little Vin Diesel, this is what we will do.”
This, perhaps, is a lesson in not announcing your game with a pre-rendered trailer featuring a very famous and wildly mediocre actor who’s too busy feuding with another mediocre actor. I await hearing about the game’s next delay in 2029 with little glee, but much anticipation.
