ARK: Survival Evolved’s Console Release Is Fantastic News For Gamers

Independent developers suffer mixed reputations in today's industry but amidst the wash of old-school, retro-inspired independent games comes one that stands head and shoulders above the rest, Studio Wildcards' ARK: Survival Evolved. Originally launching under Steam Early Access ARK: Survival Evolved had a tough road ahead of it. Many fans of the prehistoric attractions the game offered were still feeling burned following the questionable release, sale and closure of The Stomping Lands - a game that showed huge promise but was left to rot after the developers seemingly up and ran following impressive sales figures.

With gamers concerned to invest their money in a similar game Studio Wildcards' title could have quite easily disappeared into the vast library of failed Steam titles but that couldn't have been further from what's happened.

With marketing and PR executed to near perfection Studio Wildcard wasted no time in getting the game out to popular MMO and gaming outlets as well as a huge presence on Twitch through the endorsement of some of the biggest names in live-streaming. This alone was enough to push some big numbers towards the game but that alone would not have been enough to see ARK: Survival Evolved reach the huge levels of success it has today.

ARK: Survival Evolved currently celebrates more than 2.5 million players since its launch on Steam and alongside the impressive marketing and PR campaign, the biggest element to this success is the dedication, level of communication and quality of content coming from the developers.

I once called ARK: Survival Evolved one of the greatest games to ever grace Early Access and I still consider that to be the case. Studio Wildcard call themselves the studio that never sleeps and this is a boast I can believe.

Whether they've been minor fixes and features improvements or entirely new species of dinosaurs and biomes, the team have had one of the most impressive update schedules I've seen in PC gaming. Constant communication with the ARK: Survival Evolved community, huge PvP events, features based directly on community feedback - all this and more has helped ARK: Survival Evolved to become one of Steam's leading titles.

Today the team announced that December 16th will see the release of ARK: Survival Evolved on Xbox One via the ID@Xbox Program. If an Early Access game of this quality and a development team of this level of dedication is rare on PC, it's practically a first on for the console market. With developers such as Studio Wildcard raising the bar those that follow will have little choice but to match the level of quality and dedication the team have shown.