What do you want me to say? That I regained interest in Ark when Wildcard revealed that Vin Diesel was involved in the development of its sequel? As if a bald, geeky, Dungeons & Dragons fan with a sclera was enough to convince me. You really do see evil everywhere.
Announced for 2022, Ark 2 will finally have been postponed to 2023 like many other titles, due to the endless setbacks induced by the great Covid-Party. But let's tackle the brontosaurus in the middle of the room without further ado and talk about the story. If there is one at all. Apparently, the game will be a sequel to the first installment, with a Vin Diesel as a tribal leader and Auliʻi Cravalho as his daughter. That's it.
What does this have to do with Jurassic sauerkraut? According to the developers, Vin Diesel would be the right man for the job, having logged over 1,000 hours on Ark. According to a Wildcard representative, the actor understands the game "intimately" and is able to provide "direct feedback to the development process. You're going to see that we're going to end up with racing exhaust pipes on dinosaurs
"because Vin said we could".
"Naughty Toutouille who ate the player, naughty!"
Which is good, but not triceratops. On the form, the game will be close to its predecessor, but promises notable differences on the substance. For example, we learn that the fights will be played "like Souls" with their dodges, combos and special attacks. So many skills that you'll have to use to fight with dinosaurs and the local population, at the chance of an encounter or when the game decides to launch a dynamic event. Then there's exploration, which is also promised to be renewed with
"parkour and free climbing", which will probably be useful for examining the surroundings or running away from a dino that's too angry to talk.
In short, everything would be fine if Ark 2 had been able to show us even a tiny bit of gameplay. So until further notice, we'll have to stick to Wildcard's beautiful promises.
That's a lot of announcements that leave me with a lot of questions in my journalistic bag: will the switch from the Unreal Engine 4 to 5 allow the game to stop spitting out its guts when you have to display a huge base? Will we finally be able to sleep without finding our house looted by a bunch of Hungarians the next morning? Will we be able to force our prisoners to eat poo? So many questions that, hopefully, will be answered during the early access, expected for next year.
Genre: Survival, Multiplayer
Developer: Studio Wildcard, Grove Street Games
Publisher: Studio Wildcard
Platforms: Windows, Xbox Series
Release Date: 2023 (early access)
