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Update: There have been a few posts regarding the release date and why some retailer sites are displaying a different date to what we initially announced. This is because We're currently working on getting the game through PlayStation 4 Certification at the moment (as all platforms will need to release simultaneously). As soon as we've got a definitive update to the release date, we'll let you know officially. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey, Survivors! We’ve got important and exciting news to share! First of all, we’ve finally completed our game for the console disc retail submission! It was a very long and arduous process, our boss fight or so to say, and your feedback throughout this process has been highly valuable. It was a very tight deadline to make the ship date, and the team has been intensively grinding through singleplayer-oriented refinements for the posterity of the disc-based version. All that aside, we were able to resolve many issues, as well as considerably improve the game through various changes and implementation of new techniques and it’s now time to move onto refocus our development efforts on the live game, as well as address some key topics within the community: Will the Official Servers be wiping? Short answer: No -- but read the long answer! We had previously released a statement a year ago informing players that our Official Servers would not be wiping on the retail launch of the game. We’ve thought long and hard about the decision, taking into consideration the various points brought up by the community, the internal members of the team, as well as the general discussion that has taken place on the internet through various press/media outlets and will be sticking to our initial decision. It is clear that some group of players are for the wipe for, and some are against it, all for legitimate reasons; and we took it all into account. We ultimately decided that we would not wipe and we would rather pay the cost to launch an additional new PvP and PvE Server Cluster network (alongside but separate from the current PvP and PvE Legacy Cluster), where players will get to have a fresh experience on the ARK; across all four maps with no influence from any of the previous servers. At that time we'll be rolling out the new server code and infrastructure necessary to prevent critical issues such as server crashing exploits, duping, and DDoSing, so they will not affect the batch of new servers (as well as the legacy ones, going forward). Our current set of Official Servers will be rebranded as “Legacy” and indicated as such on all platforms. We will also be taking steps to remove some of our ‘ghost town’ servers, where the player population has remained near-zero for an extended duration of time. We’ll take a look at the statistics and will be repurposing 10% of the lowest count servers across all platforms. Once we know which servers these are; we'll preserve the save files and upload them, so if you so wish to use them, you can. Players will also have time to move through Cross-ARK to a different secure Legacy server. Every three months we will be taking a review of the Legacy Officials to see what the numbers are like and may consider repurposing more ‘ghost towns’, however, the goal will be to preserve any place with human activity. To be clear, if you're playing on a Legacy Server you will not be able to transfer to the new Official servers and Legacy servers will still receive total and complete support (just like the New Officials) in regards to Game Updates and future ARK Expansions, so you can expect to see future DLC servers added to the Legacy Cluster. Ragnarok: Console debut and development The new official release date for the Ragnarok Free DLC on consoles will be on the 8th of August when ARK launches for retail release. The team spent time discussing when would be the best time to release the map, for both technical reasons, as well as the experience itself, and this was the chosen date. We understand that some may find this news frustrating as you’ve waited a long time for the map, however after conferring for quite a while on the topic, we believe this is the best decision for the map’s arrival on console as; First of all, it allows the Ragnarok Developers to get the latest version of the Dev Kit and incorporate our latest changes to the game, which will have a significant impact on the console experience concerning performance, visual fidelity, and stability. Secondly, by focusing our technical workforce on the other aspects of the game (in addition to Ragnarok) such as server stability, crash exploits, duping, DDoS, we will be able to ensure a much smoother experience for when the map is available. Finally, with our recent decision in regards to whether there will be a wipe or not, this seems like the smartest decision, to avoid this awkward situation of where servers that have only just been online for a couple of weeks become legacy. The new date will also result in the map debut on console will be much farther ahead in its development than the map that was initially released on PC as the Ragnarok Developers have carried out a significant number of bug fixes, QOL changes on the map, and more! We will be doing a PC patch soon to upgrade to the latest version of the map (which is available in the Steam Workshop for Unofficial Servers!) so that you guys will also be able to enjoy their improvements! PlayStation 4 Update! It’s happening! Yes, we’re serious. We’re currently working on the latest PS4 patch with Abstraction at the moment, and while it’ll be tough, we should be set to release it this Friday (probably going to be a late evening patch). We’ll keep you posted how that goes! Thank you guys for being so patient with us over the past few weeks, we understand how frustrating it is not to receive updates, but now we are wrapped up with certification and this tight deadline, we’ll be able to go back to our standard development pipeline and therefore include you with our updates Console PC-Hosted Servers Yup, you heard it. As of the 8th of August, we will finally have support for PC hosted dedicated servers on console. We won’t be renting or hosting them ourselves, it isn’t a commercial venture for us, but we will be doing the technical work needed to get this underway. Initially, they will be available via Nitrado! (It’ll come to other third party hosts once we go through this initial technical-iteration phase, as we want to ensure its stability). These servers will be available on both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and if you haven’t realised, here’s why this is so awesome: No need for a second console to host private servers! Complete access to all of ARKs custom server config settings, which will let players change the rules on their custom ARKs The option to create cross ARK Clusters for the ultimate ARK Experience -- allowing travel across four Maps Create a backup of server save files, allowing players to try something new without the fear of losing data The servers will result in higher performance due to better optimisation Player servers will now be able to support a larger pool of players, up to 100 concurrent users! At a later date, these will also be Play Anywhere compatible! For those of you wondering about repurposed console Legacy Official Servers, you will be able to take the save file and set up an Unofficial Server using this. Nitrado will be contacting those who show interest in console servers on the 8th of August via email, you can notify them here: http://nitra.do/arkconsole Let them know if you are keen, so they can properly estimate demand! Development Kit! Oh modders, how we love you so much, we hope you can forgive us for the delay and understand as developers yourselves our reason for doing so. Fortunately, we come bearing good news! Jeremy is prepping the latest version of the Dev Kit right now (literally!) and we will have it available to download later today via GitHub, and soon after that via the Unreal Launcher when we are confident in its stability. You’ll be able to keep up with the latest information on the Unreal Forums in regards to any relevant/cool changes! That should be what we wanted to discuss for today. Hopefully, it helps clear the air with what’s been going on and the direction we’re heading in. We're looking forward to a fun ARK launch with everyone in the weeks ahead! All the best, Studio Wildcard

As we have previously mentioned in July, today marks the beginning of the process of removing our lower population ARK servers on PC, Xbox, and PS4. Here is a quick breakdown on how this process will work. Taking Down Low Pop Servers These lower population servers make up about 33% of the existing online servers, with calculations based on sustained player-count as well as popularity of game mode. These servers will be taken offline and be re-purposed for new, fresh servers that will be put up on launch day. Any existing server that is not considered a low pop server and is not taken down will become a Legacy server. Legacy servers will remain on a separate cluster from the new cluster, which means you will not be able to transfer anything between Legacy servers and the new servers. Servers Up for Deletion Below is a complete list of the servers that will be deleted come August 29th. You have from now until 12:00am EST on the 29th to move your belongings onto a server not present on this list. Please click one of the links below. They are separated by platform (PC, Xbox, and PS4). How To Move Servers If you are unfamiliar with the process, you are able to upload your items, creatures, and player through the Obelisk terminal, supply drops, as well as the Tek Transmitter. Survivors are advised to use Cross-ARK immediately to relocate their belongings onto a server that is not included in our take-down list above. Server-wide Blackout Our Official Server Network will be taken down at 12:00AM ET on August 29th and will remain down for approximately 8 hours, with our official servers coming back online at 8am ET. During this time we will be going through the process of removing all servers outlined in this post and re-purposing them into a new cluster, completely separate from all Legacy servers. The Legacy servers and all the new servers will come back online after that time. Important Customer Support Legacy Information When the current servers become Legacy servers on the 29th, we will no longer offer Customer Support to these Legacy servers. All outstanding tickets to our Customer Support team will be wiped clean on launch day, and no future tickets submitted by those playing on Legacy servers will be accepted. Going forward our Customer Support team will be focused on assisting those present on the new cluster, which will not be plagued by many of the issues that occurred during the Early Access process. Unfortunately it is beyond the scope of our operation to continue to offer support on Legacy servers at this time. Do note that this is for Customer Support only, which is the process of submitting a ticket through our support system. Legacy clusters for PS4 and for Xbox will still be receiving Ragnarok servers. Legacy servers will also receive all of the same fixes and content that the new cluster will. Allocation of New Servers We know you are all very curious about this, but we don’t have this information ready to share quite yet. What I can tell you is that we plan to continue to support all current existing game modes in some capacity, so you won’t lose access to your favourite way to play the game. In the beginning we will be mainly focusing our efforts on strictly PVP and PVE servers on all maps, but will allocate servers to the other game modes based on their popularity. Server Saves of Deleted Servers We will make the save files available as soon as we can, which will likely be sometime before Saturday. We will host these files which anyone can download and then you are welcome to re-host the save file for your own use. We'll include a link to where you can download server saves in this post when they are available. To those affected by the move, we apologize greatly. This moving process will not be easy, but it is a necessary step towards our official launch. We have learned a lot throughout our Early Access adventures. Throughout our ups and downs, you’ve stood by our side and continued to support us during our growing pains and mess ups which is why we wanted our players to have the ability to keep as much progress as they can while still moving forward with a plan that will improve the game overall. We are committed to monitoring the health of this new cluster with our new ddos mitigation and changes to the transfer system (both of which will also be present on the Legacy servers), which will no doubt improve the official online playing environment. We look forward to fostering a fair and fun community with the beginning of our brand new ARK cluster on launch day. We very much appreciate your support of ARK through its Early Access process. Xbox UWP, Rentable Servers, Crossbuy, & Crossplay! While I have you here, I have some Xbox news to share as well! Originally our plan was to go out with Play Anywhere on our launch day but unfortunately that has now been pushed back until mid-September. However I do have some exciting news to share: with the use of Xbox and Windows 10 PC Crossplay (UWP) you can host your own server without needing an extra copy of the game or a second console to do it! (Though it is important to note that you will still be able to host a Player Dedicated server this way.) If you own ARK digitally on Xbox, you get the Windows 10 PC version as well as the Xbox One X version for free and you can play with all your Xbox friends from your PC or either console. In addition, we'll be introducing rentable servers for our Xbox Survivors at that time! We'll be sure to let you all know when these additions are ready to go out to Xbox users. Our release date is rapidly approaching and we're very excited for what is about to come. We hope you are too! All the best, Studio Wildcard

ARK Official Launch Trailer! For those of you who missed us this morning on the Twitch at Gamescom livestream, we just premiered the official launch trailer for ARK: Survival Evolved! Watch it below! The past two years have been one heck of a journey for all of us. Millions of ARK players worldwide have built gigantic bases, captured and trained armies of dinosaurs, crafted armories full of weapons and eaten billions of pounds of berries. With your help, we are days away from releasing the full ARK: Survival Evolved game to the world! Come August 29th we'll be entering the next phase of our journey and exit early access. Players who have been with us throughout this early access program and were excited with the launch of each update have even more reason to be excited post-launch! ARK will continue to grow with new content at launch and beyond as we continue to have a behemoth amount of additional gameplay, creatures, and story elements in the works. The adventure has truly only just begun! With every Explorer Note you've discovered on the Island a piece of the story has come along with it. Every artifact, every apex drops, every boss battle, it has all been leading up to this moment. Now it's time to understand the bigger picture and begin to discover why every Survivor wakes up on the beach with a diamond shaped implant in their arm. Are you ready for what's in store? Will you be strong enough to take on the challenges ahead? Do you, your tribe, and your army have what it takes to reach Ascension? Only time will tell... The launch trailer also features the first in-game footage for the two newest critters to the Island, the playful Otter and the fiery Phoenix. This furry little Otter makes a cozy companion that can ride around on your shoulders and can help retrieve silica pearls for you! The flaming Phoenix bursts into fire with the heat of the desert. Operating at impossible temperatures, this legendary flyer can cook resources just by holding them. Perhaps it could even be ridden, if somehow one could acquire gear fireproof enough to withstand the flames blazing across its feathers. Lastly, we get our first look at the Tek Shield and Tek Sword in action! The sword is capable of a dash-charge attack and has armor piercing capability, while the shield can reflect incoming projectiles and bullets, and can completely stop splash damage! ARK Live Original Soundtrack! We are also very excited to announce that the pre-order for the live soundtrack recorded live at Abbey Road is now available! Watch the behind-the-scenes teaser video below. Composed by Gareth Coker, the official soundtrack album will be released August 29th via digital and streaming outlets worldwide through Sumthing Else Music Works. The soundtrack is also included in the Collectors Edition of ARK. You can pre-order the soundtrack right now! https://www.sumthing.com/p/ark/