sbeltsov

I don't have a source. This is not a leak. This is from a well-constructed post by a person (who contributed a lot to the unofficial/modded community, I spent maybe 100 hours with the beacon app configuring my drops, and most of its features are free to use, btw he replied in this thread too) who shares his thoughts on Ark 2, and he has good arguments regarding it. No one is panicking. And speculation should always be welcomed, especially when it's done right, and not in a "tinfoil hat" way. It's fun, and it should be welcomed when there's no info available. Freedom of speech, you know.

This is a very toxic comment, and from a moderator no less...

I read an interesting post from the creator of the (fantastic) beacon app regarding Ark 2. If he is right, and the customization level of Ark 2 will be much lower (including no mods), it will be very disappointing. Here's what he wrote: "I am concerned that Ark 2 will not offer the level of customization that Ark has seen. The number of options Wildcard gives us for Ark is incredible and the game is still successful because of those options. Without the flexibility given to us, I don't believe Ark would still be driving the player counts that it does after six years. But these options are a nightmare for Wildcard. They are a pain for developers who have to worry about how every one of them affects new systems. They are a pain for customer support agents, who have to play twenty questions with every admin just to figure out what's going on. And they are a pain for the bean counters because admins take the new DLC content and transplant it into older/free maps. It would not surprise me in the slightest for Ark 2 to be far more "locked down" than Ark. Given the Microsoft exclusivity, I'd even be surprised if Steam mods were allowed. My expectation is that Ark 2 will launch on PC exclusive to the Windows Store, meaning we'd all be playing the Xbox version. Steam support may come in the future, alongside the PS4 support, but I expect it'd still be the same Xbox version, just sold through Steam. I hope I'm wrong. I hope Ark 2 will give Beacon 2 a reason to exist. But what we've seen so far suggests Ark 2 will be a very different game."

I actually think that Ark 2 is meant to replace Ark 1, and will be a very similar game, a sort of a glorified DLC. And I'm perfectly OK with this. I believe that we will have something similar to X- and R- dinos - mostly recolors, but exactly the same dinos from Ark 1. Maybe some will get a TLC - better models/textures, added/changed abilities, maybe a few new dinos, but mostly we'll get a similar experience to Ark 1.

You write like there are dozens of dinosaur survival games with no modern/futuristic elements. Which games exactly are those? All the popular survival games have a different theme. The only game that comes close is The Isle, I haven't played it, but there you play as a dino, and just run around PvPing with other players, so very different from Ark - no base building/taming etc. Also it's been in early access for 5.5 years, development seems to be slow, and there's some modern architecture in the game too, from what I saw. I found a few other dino games on steam, but they all have modern weapons/technology - like Primal Carnage. Maybe there are such games, but they are very obscure/bad/unfinished/abandoned. And obviously there will be an industrial forge or something similar in Ark 2. There is such an item in Primitive Plus after all.