Studio Wildcard launched a new expansion for their adventure game Ark: Survival Evolved. Ark: Survival Evolved Aberration features increasingly fierce monsters and beautiful yet hostile areas to explore in a massive cave-like setting.
Ark: Survival Evolved was originally released earlier this year with a hefty update after leaving its early access stage. The adventure game allows players to play as “a man or woman stranded naked, freezing and starving on the shores of a mysterious island called Ark,” where they “must hunt, harvest resources, craft items, grow crops, research technologies, and build shelters to withstand the elements.” Survival also depends on how efficiently players can utilize the prehistoric creatures found on Ark through taming, training and breeding them to do different tasks and produce helpful offspring.
The Ark: Survival Evolved Aberration expansion puts players in another extreme survival environment, but this time the Ark they’re on is damaged. The malfunctioning Ark’s life resides underground in the Biolum and Element Chambers, with diverse biomes filled with new monsters to tame such as Rock Drakes, Lantern-Pugs, and Cave Crustaceans. Grotesque and humanoid-like light-hating monsters called Nameless reside in the broken Ark as well, supposedly more vicious than enemies found on the normal Ark island. The Nameless Reaper Queens may prove especially fearsome, using their attacks to impregnate foes and cause them to explode from their chest. It has not been revealed how the Nameless came to be, but certain monsters on the Ark have evolved specifically to be able to fight against Nameless by using their light and charge abilities.
The expansion also introduces a number of new crafting features and environmental hazards unique to the broken Ark. Players will have to overcome obstacles such as radioactive sunlight, earthquakes and gas leaks while exploring by using new ziplines, climbing picks and gliding windsuits. Everyday tools such as “charge lanterns, explosive rounds, batteries, glowsticks, railguns and much more,” can be found to help with day-to-day survival.
The Ark: Survival Evolved Aberration expansion is available for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 for $19.99, with crossplay enabled for Xbox One and Windows 10 users. The expansion can also be accessed by purchasing the Ark: Survival Evolved Season Pass.