The long-awaited Ark 2 was announced in 2020, and after a lengthy wait with minimal updates and a few delays, it finally has a new release window. Unfortunately, it’s still a few years away, but we now have a better idea as to why and what to expect from the upcoming sequel.
In an interview with Epic Games’ Brian Crecente, Studio Wildcard co-founder Jeremy Stieglitz confirmed that Ark 2 is now planned to launch in 2028. This was revealed during publisher Snail Games’ Investor Day. He also explains the studio’s approach to releasing Ark 2, and how it wants to incorporate the lessons learned from releasing Ark: Survival Ascended, the current and remastered iteration of the original Ark: Survival Evolved.
“One of the things about doing Ark 2 was that we felt we had to learn a lot more about how to make the kind of game we wanted to do, and to do it kind of in phases,” Stieglitz explains. “Learning about both the technology and the mechanics seemed, to us, safer than to just try to go and release a whole standalone product called Ark 2.”
To do this, Studio Wildcard is planning to use Ark: Survival Ascended, which has now surpassed 4 million units sold, to gradually prepare for Ark 2’s launch. The first taste of the sequel will come in an expansion called Legacy of Santiago, arriving in late 2027. This expansion will feature mechanics and features planned for the 2028 sequel and serves as a prequel that will help set the stage for Ark 2’s events – Santiago is, after all, Ark 2’s protagonist, portrayed by Vin Diesel.
“Legacy of Santiago will allow us to explore a lot of mechanics that we want to do with Ark 2, but it kind of derisks that, ” says Stieglitz. “Essentially, if we don’t do it right, if we don’t do it perfectly, we’re able to iterate on it with a live game and get a lot more feedback than to just release something standalone. It’s much safer for us to get a lot of that feedback in a live game where we can react much more fluidly to what players are telling us.”
In terms of Vin Diesel’s role in Ark 2, Stieglitz says his total involvement is still “an open question” that will determine the full scope of ambition of the game’s plot.
“The question is: How much performance are we going to get from him?” Stieglitz said. “Are we going to get one day, five days, eight hours? You don’t know. And the scope of how much performance we are going to get determines just how the narrative is going to play out. We have a narrative that’s if we get a lot of Vin Diesel, this is what we will do, and if we get a little Vin Diesel, this is what we will do.”
Stieglitz also explains that Studio Wildcard wants to ensure players are ready to leave the previous game behind before launching Ark 2; it doesn’t want to stop updating Ark: Survival Ascended and leave those players in the cold. Thus, it is implementing a robust content roadmap throughout 2026 and 2027. This includes new narrative expansion Ark: Lost Colony launching this week, and 2026 additions such as the esports-focused Ark: Survival of the Fittest, a pirate-themed expansion called Bob’s True Tales: Tides of Fortune, and a modding-focused update called Ark World Creator. Even when Ark 2 launches, Stieglitz states that Ark: Survival Ascended will continue to be updated as long as demand exists.
Ark 2 was announced during The Game Awards in 2020 with a 2023 launch window. The game was delayed to 2024, with Studio Wildcard releasing Ark: Survival Ascended in 2023 instead. Obviously, Ark 2 would miss this 2024 launch window, and is now slated to arrive eight years after its reveal, assuming everything (hopefully) goes as planned.