An animated series for Paramount+ based on ARK: Survival Evolved (now Ascended) ahead of the launch of ARK 2 was announced in 2020, but we don't blame you if you'd forgotten, as that pterosaur flew under most folks' radars. Now, the streaming service has surprise-dropped six episodes of it in the US and Canada. One would think this production was a smaller one, yet we're looking at huge names such as Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All at Once), Russell Crowe (The Loudest Voice), Gerard Butler (Plane), David Tennant (Doctor Who), Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction), Elliot Page (The Umbrella Academy), Madeleine Madden (The Wheel of Time), and Vin Diesel (Fast & Furious franchise). They're not messing around, eh? The show itself, which released a lengthy trailer in late 2022 too, looks okay and like your average streaming-only animated adaptation based on a video game. That is, below Castlevania's level and on par with stuff like DOTA, Dragon's Dogma,

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Ark: Survival Ascended, the upcoming replacement/ remaster of Survival Evolved, has been delayed to October. As announced in a community blog post, the remaster of the online survival game will release some time in October, though no specific date has been set yet. Notably, the release will now be an early access one, and it even has another, another price point: $45, though a launch-discount will temporarily place it at $40. Just to keep you up to date, the state of things are: developer Studio Wildcard announced it was shutting down Survival Evolved to make way for Survival Ascended, making you pay $49.99 for a game you technically already owned, then it was made more expensive after backlash, and now it's cheaper again. Just video game things. According to the blog post, Studio Wildcard has "found it challenging working with Unreal Engine 5.2, but at the same time, it is incredibly exciting. We’re discovering new ways each day to push the technology to the next

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After some fan backlash over how the Ark: Survival Evolved remaster is being handled, Studio Wildcard has responded by… making it more expensive. Last week, Studio Wildcard made a couple of big announcements related to the Ark series. The first one, that Ark 2 has been delayed into 2024, is completely unsurprising, as we have seen literally nothing of the game so far. The second one was a little more surprising though, as the studio announced that Ark: Survival Evolved is getting a big remaster called Ark: Survival Ascended, as well as the fact that Survival Evolved's servers are getting shut down, meaning players would have to buy the remaster. Fans didn't like this much, so obviously Studio Wildcard's solution was to make it more expensive. To further explain, in the announcement Wildcard revealed that if you want to play the game on Xbox or PC, you had to buy a bundle which also contains the upcoming second game for $49.99 (on PS5 you could buy just Survival Ascended for $39.99). On top of that players would have to buy upcoming expansion packs. Now, in a new

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Studio Wildcard has announced it will shut the servers down for Ark: Survival Evolved in August, and the game will be replaced with Ark: Survival Ascended. Ark: Survival Ascended is a next-generation remaster of Survival Evolved and comes with new features, and plenty of improvements and enhancements. Some enhancements include an Unreal Engine 5 overhaul with Nanite, Lumen and RTXDI, Dynamic Water, Interactive Foliage, and performance gains such as instanced rendering, threaded server networking, and native physics engine. Read more

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The second part of Ark: Survival Evolved's Genesis expansion is dropping soon, and with it comes the voice talents of Doctor Who himself David Tennant. The new story content will also feature Madeleine Madden, best known for The Wheel of Time. Details are pretty slim on what this second part will actually entail, other than that there will be "new story cutscenes to introduce and conclude each Ark map." A short, slightly trippy trailer was shown off, which certainly does set up some dramatic events at the very least. The trailer also shows off… well, some kind of giant, human-eseuqe, octopus creature, presumably as some kind of boss you can face off against, so prepare for some nightmares if you come across it. Read more

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Microsoft has announced the first batch of games coming to Game Pass in February. Kicking things off on February 3 is Contrast for cloud and console. In this game, you will explore a vaudevillian world set in the 1920s. You can shift freely in and out of shadow as you aid a young girl all the while unraveling the mysteries behind her troubled family and try your best to help re-shape her future. Action roguelike Dreamscaper will arrive the same day for cloud, console, and PC. The game features a waking/dreaming gameplay cycle whereby night you delve into your subconscious where you will face your nightmares and try to overcome challenges using various abilities. During the daytime, you will explore the city where you dwell and build relationships with others as you unlock permanent upgrades which will help you out next time you enter a dream phase. Read more

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