ARK: Survival of the Fittest‘s development for console release has been put on hold. This news comes at the same time as the announcement that the PC version of ARK: Survival of the Fittest will become a part of the ARK: Survival Evolved package. This will make it easier for modders to take full control of the game without running into any restrictions in regards to content or licensing. This also keeps ARK: Survival of the Fittest from becoming free-to-play which Wildcard, the developer, would like to avoid as they don’t feel that free-to-play monetization is something in their wheelhouse.
In a forum post Wildcard wrote, “We don’t know much about monetization, and quite frankly we aren’t interested in hiring an economics team to take over that process, it is much more in our and your best interest for Wildcard to solely focus on the development of a game. We just aren’t cut out for free to play mechanics.”
ARK: Survival of the Fittest was originally announced on July 24, 2015 as a competitive-battle mod for ARK: Survival Evolved. The game mode was originally announced for Xbox One back in March 2016. At the outset the mode was intended to be a free-to-play offering consoles but with the new decisions regarding the PC version it is doubtful that that will still be the case.
