ARK: Survival Evolved has been around since prehistoric times at this point (okay, okay, maybe just since 2015). To bring the game up to modern standards, Studio Wildcard has been working on an Unreal Engine 5 version of the game with a handful of graphical and quality-of-life upgrades. As part of today’s Xbox Partner Preview event, a new ARK: Survival Ascended launch trailer hatched to celebrate the game’s release.

The launch trailer is viewable below:

All of ARK’s dinosaurs, lush environments, and heavy weaponry look great in this brand-new engine. Studio Wildcard has taken full advantage of all the cutting-edge features of Unreal Engine 5 like Nanite and Lumen. The team also shared details on the game’s significant changes over on the official Xbox Wire site:

ARK: Survival Ascended Features

• Cross-Platform Modding – The new in-game CurseForge mod browser, which will be directly accessible from the main menu of the game, will soon be filled with new structures, dinos, maps, decorative pieces, and game modes. We’re also working closely with professional game studios and developers to bring their original content and IP to Ark: Survival Ascended to make it the ultimate gaming modding ecosystem and expect to have announcements with some of those partners very soon. At launch, you will be able to start making your own mods by heading to the Epic Launcher and downloading the new Ark Devkit.
• UI Overhaul – When you first jump into ASA, you’ll notice a huge overhaul of the User Interface. It’s been punched up visually and given more functionality to enable you to tailor your experience to match your playstyle. The options are there if you’re looking for a more minimalistic UI to keep the immersion or something that covers all the details.
• Quality-of-Life Updates – We’ve also leveled up various other aspects of the game, including the third-person camera for players and creatures with additional per-creature customization and flexibility. A new, highly detailed map system that supports world pings and points of interest. Advanced dynamic navigation for intelligent creature pathfinding, so no more running into walls of your base, but running away from Carnivores just got tougher! Additionally, there are more character customization options, unique color sets, quality-of-life improvements, new split-screen multiplayer functionalities, audio revamping, new gameplay items and structures, changes to existing items and creatures, and essentially, every inch of The Island has been redesigned, and much more.
• Unreal Engine 5 Improvements – The most impactful difference between the two games is that ASA has been built on Unreal Engine 5, giving us the ability to deliver cross-platform modding (we mentioned earlier), access to greater tools such as Lumen lighting, Nanite mesh rendering, Chaos physics, and more.
  • Lumen is a fully dynamic global illumination system, which means as the gameplay environment changes, the lighting around it also changes. It creates a richer, immersive, and realistically lit environment. Imagine riding your raptor through the jungles of The Island and experiencing a more lifelike world. Sunlight and moonlight filter through the dense treelines, bouncing off of water surfaces, torchlights illuminating the insides of caves, and bases adapting to light based on whether you’ve opened or closed a window, and all of that dynamic lighting adjusting based on how you play the game.
  • Nanite allows us to use incredibly high-detail assets directly within the game, which get scaled and streamed onto the graphics processor in real time, tremendously increasing the visual fidelity of ASA. Imagine more environmental details, including realistic rocky textures, accurate tree patterning, and flourishing fauna. You’ll be able to construct highly detailed bases using the improved structure tile sets and, of course, tame sharper-looking dinosaurs! Frankly, everything looks better, and secondly, it really saves our development time, as Nanite eliminates the need to generate separate “level of detail” meshes and enables us to use the original high-resolution source meshes directly in-game.
  • Chaos is a physics destruction system that simulates complex and large-scale destruction in real time. So, when you’re raiding a base, blasting it with your rocket launcher, or crushing it with the sheer force of a Tyrannosaurus Rex’s bite, it will look more dynamic and realistic when those bases crumble and scatter around you.
  • Instanced-Based Rendering, this is a huge one. What do you love to do? Create massive bases, villages, and towns — basically, place down as many structures as you can fit into an area. This would have seriously affected client performance in the old game because it would have had to render basically everything. With instance-based rendering, you only pay the cost (on your frames) for the one structure piece. Meaning, one wooden wall on-screen has the same client impact on performance as a hundred — your game will be running a lot better in your giant bases!
  • Fluid and Foliage Interaction Systems have been critical in delivering a more realistic, immersive, and dynamic world. We’ve tried to make it so that just about everything has a way of interacting with the foliage and fluids in the world. That means your Survivor running through the grass, creatures wading through streams, or explosives and other items will cause a visible physical reaction in the game world. These interactions dynamically adjust based on various factors such as size, velocity, or impact of what they’re interacting with. So, if you’re running through a stream with a Spino slashing at Coelacanth in shallow waters, expect to see a lot of water displacement, ripples, foam, splashes, and water droplets flying into the air around you.
• All Previous DLC Included – A key thing to remember is that Ark: Survival Ascended will include all its previously released DLCs and maps in its remade form and will have its own content roadmap. This will include new story content for the game, further gameplay/QOL changes, new DLC, seasonal events, and over time, we’ll be releasing 11 brand new creatures (More than any previous DLC expansions).

This package is no joke! The devs clearly put a lot of time and effort into modernizing their iconic dino-themed survival game. Hopefully this will hold players over until the release of Ark 2, whenever that may be.

ARK: Survival Ascended is available from today on PC, with the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions soon to follow this November.

For more Xbox Partner Preview news, check out the latest details on The Finals’ upcoming open beta.

Source: Xbox Wire