Studio Wildcard released their newest Community Crunch last weekend, and with it comes the first in-game screenshot of ARK: Survival Ascended!
ARK Survival fans have been through the wringer when it comes to price changes and delays of ASA, however, this newest screenshot may give you all some hope for the future.
The creature in the image above is known as the Deinotherium, which was not present in the previously released ARK: Survival Evolved. It is unclear what the Deinotherium’s functionality will be in ARK: Survival Ascended, but I’m just excited to see a new dino in general.
Besides the dino itself, the screenshot above gives a better look at the improved light and shadow engine being used in ASA. It seems to be orders of magnitude ahead of the one used for ARK: Survival Evolved.
For those unaware, ARK: Survival Ascended will be using Unreal Engine 5, which utilizes the latest and greatest graphics innovations that video games have to offer.
If you take a closer look at the tabs in the top left of Studio Wildcard’s screenshot, you’ll notice a tab that says ASA_FluidNinjaTest. For those unaware, FluidNinja is a physics plugin for Unreal Engine 5 that adds water, smoke, fire, and other physics properties into your game.
This means that ARK: Survival Ascended is utilizing FluidNinja, and that by looking into FluidNinja, we can get an idea of what ASA’s water and physics engine will look like in-game!
As you can see in the video above, FluidNinja’s water physics are absolutely beautiful. It makes water extremely dynamic with currents, waves, and better object interaction.
This is an extremely exciting discovery for ARK: Survival fans, as it will make water combat, exploration, and bases all the more enticing.
I personally cannot wait for ARK: Survival Ascended to launch “at the end of October” according to Studio Wildcard. However, by the looks of these discoveries, I may need to buy a new graphics card…
