Recently, DualShockers had a chat with ARK: Survival Evolved Co-Creative Director Jesse Rapczak, and we asked him about what he sees in the future of the game and of the franchise.
Rapczak mentioned that the team is going to look closely at the performance of the new expansion pack Aberration, that will launch this month for PC, Xbox One and PS4. They also already have their next expansion planned, and in pre-production, aiming for a release next year.
That being said, if Aberration meets the studio’s sales expectations, they’ll be looking at what’s next beyond the next expansion.
“I think, you know, as we get down the line, over the next year or two, ARK needs to have a sequel at some point. It’s definitely gonna be on our minds about when it’s the right time to something like that.”
Rapczak clarified that the studio isn’t currently working on a sequel, but he believes that the first game has been successful enough to warrant thinking how to bring a sequel to market at some point in the future.
Asked whether he already has ideas for the sequel, Rapczak mentioned that he doesn’t yet, as the studio still has “a bunch of great ideas” that they need to implement in ARK: Survival Evolved and in the expansion packs. Yet, after the studio releases the next two expansions, he feels like he’ll have a better idea of where they’ll want to go in the future.
ARK: Survival Evolved is currently available for Xbox One, PS4 and PC, and the game just received an update to support Xbox One X, which makes it look a lot better than it did on Original Xbox One. You can also read about Rapczak’s insight on the possibility of a Nintendo Switch version.