Dino-taming developer Studio Wildcard has announced a special branch of its upcoming PC beta for Ark: Survival Ascended that will grant players a first look at the game’s Survival of the Fittest mode – a fresh take on the popular battle royale spin off of the original Ark: Survival Evolved that pits up to 60 combatants and their dinosaur armies against each other in fast, round-based combat.
To take part in this tyrannical take on a battle royale game, you’ll need the Steam version of Ark: Survival Ascended, since you’ll be activating the beta through Steam’s system menu. The developers will send out full beta branch and server information via Discord, however through a Steam update post they state that to activate the beta you will need to:
- Open your Steam library and right click on Ark: Survival Ascended, then click ‘Properties’
- Navigate to the ‘Betas’ tab on the menu that will have appeared
- Select the proper beta branch from the ‘Beta Participation’ drop-down
From here your game should download the beta, which will cause your game to be patched and updated. The same steps need to be followed if you decide to leave the beta program further down the line.
Ark: Survival Ascended has run into a series of controversies since its launch, with players concerned about the game’s prehistoric performance and crossplay servers being limited from PC with Windows users prevented from joining for the “health of the game.” Due to its negative reception, player numbers have been split between the original Ark and the release of the remaster, which many believe should have been a free upgrade, rather than a separate, full-price game.
If Ark: Survival Ascended’s Survival of the Fittest mode doesn’t pique your interest, and you’re not ready to lie down and be trampled by its poor PC performance, but are still looking for some dino-mite good times, why not take a look at our list of the best dinosaur games for PC. Alternatively, if you just can’t bear to leave your pens of dino friends untended, enhance your experience with our pick of the best Ark: Survival Evolved mods.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.