Studio Wildcard today released the ARK Dev Kit, a streamlined version of the UE4 Editor to simplify the creation and sharing process of mods for ARK: Survival Evolved. It is available to download now for free via the Epic Games Launcher. Creative souls can easily generate their own ARK items, weapons, creatures, maps and game modes to share with fellow survivors online.
The “ARK: Survival Evolved Modding Contest” also kicks off today, sponsored by Alienware and is a massive competition to celebrate the best of the best in the modding community.
The contest objective is to use the Unreal Engine 4 ARK Dev Kit to create a new “Mod” that best exemplifies the judging criteria. Players can submit diverse island maps, underground environments, game modes, new structures and items for a chance to win over $25,000 in cash and prizes. To enter the contest and find details on rules and regulations, go HERE.
? Grand Prize (1st Place): $15,000 USD, Alienware Area-51 Desktop, and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Graphics Card
? 2nd Place: $5,000 USD, Alienware X51 Desktop, and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 Graphics Card
? 3rd Place: $2,500 USD and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 Graphics Card
To showcase the depth of the ARK Dev Kit, the Studio Wildcard team created the competitive ‘Survival of the Fittest’ (SoTF) total conversion mod, which is now available to download via Steam Workshop.
Each SotF battle takes place on a modified version of the ARK island, with the objective being to eliminate all other survivors before they eliminate you.
The map is surrounded by a dome-shaped force field that shrinks as the match progresses, and leveling, gathering, taming and building happen at a quicker rate. As the contestants enter this arena, not only do they need to look out for the dangers from the creatures and the other survivors, but also randomized ‘Evolution Events.’
These events take place every 30 minutes and have major impact on the gameplay, from freak weather occurrences, to dinosaurs dropping from the sky, extra supply drops, day-to-night shifts, player location reveals, and more.
Best of all, the full source content for the ‘Survival of the Fittest’ mode is available within the ARK Dev Kit, so aspiring mod creators can see how this game-changing “Total Conversion” has been put together, and build on it or make their own.
Have fun!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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