Epic Games has begun to implement its long-awaited achievements system within certain games played via its PC launcher. At the moment these will be tracked in the background and only displayed within some games while the interface is fine-tuned. In a message posted to Twitter last night, Epic cautioned the feature was still an early version and would be improved over time. For now, here's how it looks in action within Ark: Survival Evolved: Read more

Continue Reading

Developer Wildcard's perennially popular dinosaur-themed survival game Ark: Survival Evolved is the latest freebie to grace the Epic Games Store. Ark: Survival Evolved first reared its head in 2015 as a Steam Early Access title, eventually making its way to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Switch - albeit in the form of a barely functional smear in the latter case. Yet despite its age, Ark has still rides high up Steam's list of concurrent players, all drawn to its compelling, if shamelessly time-gobbling mix of prehistorically themed homemaking and bloodthirsty PvP. Initially, Ark was a fairly focussed game of dinosaur taming, base building, and survival meter management, all in service of massive-scale tribal warfare (unless you joined a PvE server, in which case your worse, most terrifying foe was usually a pillar). Things have changed tremendously over the years and four paid expansions, however, with developer Wildcard taking a more kitchen sink approach to development, upping the sci-fi and fantasy elements, while heaping endless new tricks of an already creaky base. Read

Continue Reading

Part one of Ark: Survival Evolved's two-part Genesis expansion, which was due to launch this month following a release date delay back in December, will now arrive on 25th February, according to its developer Wildcard Studios. Genesis, which was first unveiled back in August last year, effectively forms Ark's second season pass, and will ultimately deliver the game's fourth and fifth paid expansions - following on from previous offerings Scorched Earth, Aberration, and Extinction. Announcing Genesis' second delay on the Ark website, Wildcard wrote, "We're extremely sorry to push it back an extra month, but as we have been heads-down with the rest of the team polishing, balancing and putting the final pieces together, we really felt that the extra wait will be worth it both for the quality of the base game and the ambitious new expansion." Read more

Continue Reading

Developer Wildcard has unveiled Genesis, a new two-part expansion for Ark: Survival Evolved, and it's coming to PC, Xbox One, and PS4, starting in December. Genesis will ultimately deliver Ark's fourth and fifth paid expansions - following on from Scorched Earth, Aberration, and Extinction - and will form the game's second season pass. Those with good memories may recall the controversy surrounding Ark's first season pass, which arose when Studio Wildcard opted to introduce paid DLC into the game well before it had left early access. It remains to be see if the community will be more accepting of a new season pass with Ark: Survival Evolved now approaching its second year as a full release. As to what Genesis will bring in terms of specifics, that's a little harder to gauge right now. Despite being unveiled in a 50-minute livestream, the bulk of the expansions still remain firmly under wraps. What we do know, however, is that both parts will include a "really cool map", with the first map set within a simulation, enabling Wildcard to do things that were "even too crazy" for previous expansions. Read more

Continue Reading

Three years after it released in Steam Early Access, and one year after it launched for real, Ark: Survival Evolved's third and final DLC expansion, Extinction, arrives today on PC. It comes to PS4 and Xbox One on November 11th. Extinction follows on from Ark's previous paid expansions, Scorched Earth and Aberration, and introduces a brand-new map, a new selection of mechanics, and new tameable critters. For this, its final offering, developer Studio Wildcard has once again opted to go hard on the sci-fi, foregoing Ark's earlier, more natural environments for a brooding sprawl of dereliction. Extinction's map transports players to a ravaged Earth, which, for those invested in the series' lore, "holds both the secrets of the past and the keys to its salvation". Alongside its ample wasteland, Extinction includes the remains of a sprawling metropolis, waiting to be explored. Read more…

Continue Reading

Valve has stepped up its anti-cheat measures and issued almost 95,000 bans in the last week alone. In July 2017, we reported that on 6th July Valve banned over 40K Steam accounts for cheating, making it the single largest banhammer the company had ever deployed. Emphasis on "had", though. Read more…

Continue Reading