Final week I sat down with Studio Wildcard co-founders Jeremy Stieglitz and Jesse Rapczak, principally to grill them about Vin Diesel but in addition to speak about what’s occurring with Ark: Survival Ascended nowadays. I used to be shocked when Stieglitz began speaking not about dinosaurs however pirates, citing one other sport Studio Wildcard had developed: Atlas.Bear in mind Atlas? The open world pirate survival sport was put to sea in December 2018 however had a tough launch, together with efficiency and stability issues that led to heaps of unfavorable evaluations. It is nonetheless on the market: you should purchase it and play it, however not like Ark: Survival Advanced, Atlas by no means recovered from its shaky begin.”It did not actually work out for us, as a result of it had some insane tech, some loopy cool concepts, however as a sport loop, it had a whole lot of issues,” Stieglitz mentioned. “Atlas is, like, loopy cool tech, however a whole lot of sport design classes about what to not do.”Article continues under
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Atlas came about in an enormous, networked ocean world of stitched-together servers so gamers might sail from server to server as they battled one another and picked up sources. It was a labor intensive sport: logs from felled bushes might solely be carried separately, ships had been constructed plank by plank, and defeat meant you mainly needed to begin another time.”All this stuff sound very attention-grabbing in idea, however you place all of them collectively, and what is the end result? A sport that is insanely punishing, and should you make one unsuitable flip you’ve got simply misplaced 50 hours of progress,” Stieglitz mentioned. “However what I did like about it was, I appreciated the crusing. I appreciated the water. I appreciated the physicality of the ships. These issues had been satisfying.”
Prototype ocean screenshot from Tides of Fortune (Picture credit score: Snail Video games)That is why some components of Atlas, at the very least in spirit, are being salvaged for Ark: Survival Ascended’s upcoming Tides of Fortune DLC. This summer time, Ark gamers will be capable of construct big pirate ships and sail throughout simulated ocean physics in quest of journey.”Ark’s water is famously flat and uninteresting, and having community simulated ocean physics is cool,” Jesse Rapczak mentioned. “Not only for this, but in addition for modders and the final functionality of the engine.”Maintain updated with a very powerful tales and the perfect offers, as picked by the PC Gamer group.”We all know the right way to work the water methods. We all know the right way to work the physics methods, the networking methods to drag that off,” Stieglitz mentioned. “It builds on our experience with these mechanics from Atlas, and we hope to distill it right into a extra accessible type than Atlas ever had.”
Prototype ocean screenshot from Tides of Fortune (Picture credit score: Snail Video games)They confirmed me some video—which I sadly cannot present to you as a result of it is a work in progress. Nevertheless it regarded fairly sensible: the ocean is not as superb to behold as in a sport like Sea of Thieves, but it surely’s a significant enchancment over Ark’s present water, sporting lifelike trying waves, foamy wakes, and daylight scattering off the rippled floor.The ship within the video, and within the pictures on this web page, is an asset from Atlas, so I have never seen what your actual ships will seem like but, however getting and sustaining these ships in Tides of Fortune shall be simpler than it was in Atlas, and crafting a alternative if it is sunk will not be an extended, labor-intensive course of.”There’ll nonetheless be a whole lot of customization. You can put attachments on, and cannons the place you need, and construct every kind of different common buildings on it.” Stieglitz mentioned. And, in fact, you’ll convey your dinosaurs in your ship. You might turn into a pirate, but it surely’s nonetheless gonna be Ark.
