‘ARK: Survival Evolved’ Xbox One And Win 10 Cross-Play Slips To January

Xbox One and Windows 10 owners looking forward to crossplay support for ARK: Survival Evolved will have to wait a little longer. Studio Wildcard Co-Founder and Creative Director Jesse Rapczack shared that the Play Anywhere feature has slipped during an ID@Xbox Twitch livestream Thursday.

As Inquisitr previously reported, Studio Wildcard was targeting a December release for Play Anywhere support with ARK: Survival Evolved, but it was not guaranteed. Lead Developer Jeremy Stieglitz noted it was being worked on as a side project while the studio has been focused on adding new content, new features, and a PS4 release leading into the open-world survival title exiting Early Access sometime in Spring 2017.

The work “requires reformatting ARK’s application handling to work with Universal Windows Platform,” Stieglitz explained at the time. “Hard to predict exactly when it’ll be ready to release at the moment, but it’s looking like December!”

Play Anywhere support will have to wait until January, at least. Rapczack did confirm Studio Wildcard was working with Microsoft to ensure those who purchased ARK: Survival Evolved for the Xbox One will automatically be given the game as a free download for Windows 10 PCs too.

Rapczack also confirmed once again Windows 10 owners will be able to set up their own dedicated servers to run ARK: Survival Evolved. Presumably, server hosting companies will take advantage of this to offer server rentals for those that want to run their own ARK server without dealing with the hardware and connection details.

Additionally, the Creative Director hinted at the possibility a Windows 10 PC owner might be able to run a dedicated server and play ARK: Survival Evolved at the same time. This would mean running the server as a separate application, but this is not guaranteed and was only mentioned as a possibility Studio Wildcard is currently exploring.

Despite the lack of Play Anywhere support for December, ARK: Survival Evolved players on the Xbox One do have new items to look forward to. The 748.0 update is currently scheduled for December 14 and will finally bring Xbox LIVE Achievements to the game. It’s not known yet if Achievements will be reward retroactively, but Rapczack did say they will be available for the hardest challenges in the game, as well as some of the simplest. These will also be added to Steam while PlayStation Trophies were previously confirmed.

Another major feature to be included in the December update is the addition of Procedurally Generated Maps (PGM). The ability to create semi-randomized maps was introduced to the PC version of ARK: Survival Evolved a little over a month ago. It required additional work and testing to get it on the Xbox One, but Studio Wildcard revealed plans to mix up the Extinction servers with the PGMs.

The 748 patch release will coincide with Studio Wildcard taking the official Extinction Servers offline temporarily and setting them up to run with Procedurally Generated Maps going forward. This means when the server resets itself every month, it will provide a new start on a unique map.

Meanwhile, new content will include the addition of four new dinosaurs: the giant snail, Achatina; a nocturnal two-legged carnivore with the Megalosaurus; the Triceratops cousin, Pachyrhinosaurus, and the cowardly lizard, Moschops.

There is also a complete revamping of the caves on The Island map. They’ve been given a graphical and performance overhaul along with new challenges to attempt to complete for better loot.

The oft-delayed Breeding Phase 3 will also be added with this patch. This adds family trees and mutations when breeding dinosaurs. PC players are still discovering what happens when you inbreed. Reddit user silverbullet1989 shared an image of a Spinosaurus with a neon green belly, for example.

There is still no word yet on if Xbox One owners will receive the Winter Wonderland 2 event for the Christmas holidays. PC owners are currently scheduled to receive it on December 21 with the 253.0 patch.

Further out, the Tek Tier is coming to the PC with the 253.0 patch and should hit the Xbox One two to four weeks later. Underwater cave systems and base building is scheduled for early in 2017.

[Featured Image by Studio Wildcard]