Development on ARK: Survival of the Fittest, a spinoff “M.O.S.A.” of Wildcard’s wildly popular ARK: Survival Evolved, has been put on hold in order to focus on finishing the PlayStation 4 version of the latter title, the studio has confirmed. A statement on Sony’s PlayStation blog (via VideoGamer), reads:
Hey ARK fans, Studio Wildcard is putting the PS4 version of ARK: Survival of the Fittest on hold in order to focus on preparing ARK: Survival Evolved for PS4 release. While this means ARK: Survival of the Fittest won’t be releasing on PS4 in July 2016, we’re working towards an earlier release of ARK: Survival Evolved.
Considering Wildcard had originally intended for Survival Evolved to hit Sony’s platform in June, its has since been pushed all the way back to a more ambiguous Holiday 2016 release window. However, now that it appears to be their main focus, we could hopefully see that date brought forward.
As for ARK: Survival of the Fittest, you can see some early gameplay footage in the video above. Wildcard describes the spinoff as the “first ever M.O.S.A. – a Multiplayer Online Survival Arena -” that’s been created specifically for the eSports crowd.
Welcome to ARK: Survival of the Fittest, the first ever M.O.S.A. – a Multiplayer Online Survival Arena – that Studio Wildcard designed for the burgeoning wild west of eSports. ARK: Survival of the Fittest (SotF) pits up to 72 combatants in an action-packed struggle for survival where players are ultimately pushed into an epic final showdown where only one “Tribe” will make it out alive.
As of writing, the early access version of Survival Evolved has sold over 5 million copies on Xbox One and PC.