It was a surprise to everyone when Ark 2 was announced at The Game Awards in 2020, but where is it at in the development process right now?
My expectations for Ark were low, to say the least, especially with top-tier talent like Vin Diesel on board. But that is exactly what happened. We still don't know much about Ark 2, but we know a lot more than we do about most other games that don't even have a release date set yet. My initial impression was that there wouldn't be a real story to tell. Then I dug into the DLC cutscenes from the previous game and discovered that Vin Diesel does appear at the very end of the game's previous DLC. The second installment of the Ark series is going to be a wild ride, in my opinion.
Here's everything we know about the upcoming Ark sequel.
Ark 2 Release Date
Unfortunately, there isn't a firm release date for Art 2 at this time. However, we do know that it will be released sometime in 2022, so you won't have to wait for too much longer than that. It was revealed in the first trailer, which was shown at the 2020 Game Awards show, that Art 2 would be a console launch exclusive for the Xbox Series X|S console.
Without a doubt, you'll be able to play it on your PC, whether it's through the Xbox One application, Steam, or the Epic Games Store.
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Ark 2 story
Those who have invested a significant amount of time in Ark: Survival Evolved are well aware that it takes a significant amount of effort to figure out what the hell is going on in the story. By any means, it's not a conventional narrative, and there's a lot of work to be done in order to get those in-game cutscenes to look good. However, it appears that Ark 2 is taking a more user-friendly approach to the game. We got a glimpse of a very familiar face in the latest trailer for Ark 2, which is that of Vin Diesel, who will be playing the hero character Santiago.
It's not clear whether or not Ark 2 will contain an overarching narrative. It's possible that Vin Diesel appears as a non-player character (NPC) in the open world, or that he's a playable character. In the first game, you simply design a player character that is amusing to look at. Whatever the narrative, it appears that there are antagonistic humanoids in the game who appear to be monsters, which was not the case in the first game, at least not when I played it, according to the screenshots.
When it comes to making Ark 2 stand out from its predecessor and establish itself as a AAA title, a fully fleshed-out narrative starring one of Hollywood's most well-known actors would almost certainly be the most effective strategy. It's certainly not the move I was expecting from the small dinosaur game, which launched in early access on Xbox in 2017 and later became available in full.
We see Vin Diesel's character leaving his pod and landing on a new world at the very end of Ark: Survival Evolved, which is presumably where Ark 2 will take place, but that's all we know about the film so far. Ark: Survival Evolved is currently in theaters.
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Ark 2 PC requirements
We don't know much about Ark 2, let alone how powerful a computer will need to be in order to play it. However, if Ark: Survival Evolved is any indication, you'll need a monster PC in order to play it at a respectable frame rate.
At the time of writing, the minimum system requirements for Ark: Survival Evolved were an Intel Core i5-2400 or AMD FX-8320 CPU with 8GB of RAM and an Nvidia GTX 670 2GB or AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB GPU. However, any Ark player will tell you that those specifications are in no way capable of maintaining the chaos that is Ark: Survival Evolved.
There are numerous videos online of people playing Ark: Survival Evolved at 1080p at 60 frames per second on high settings with GPUs from the 10-series. If I had to guess, I would say that RTX 20-series processors will be required to run Ark 2 at peak performance. It turns out that even low-cost gaming laptops equipped with GPUs from the 30-series will suffice for this purpose.
