Xbox Play Anywhere and Cross Play Support Comes to Ark: Survival Evolved on Xbox One and Windows 10
The wait is finally over, survivors. Ark: Survival Evolved has officially launched in the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 and is available for download right now if you already own the Xbox One version! Or, if you haven’t yet set foot in the world of Ark, now’s the perfect time to join in on the fun with all of your Xbox friends via Xbox Play Anywhere and cross play. Ark: Survival Evolved includes the base game along with Primitive+, The Center, and Ragnarok and there are already two massive expansion packs available: Ark: Scorched Earth and Ark: Aberration.
What does all this mean? Isn’t Ark already released? Yes, the game was already available for Xbox One and Xbox One X, but now it’s officially an Xbox Play Anywhere title! Studio Wildcard has worked closely with the teams at Microsoft to make sure anyone who has purchased the game digitally on Xbox can still download and play on both platforms at no additional cost. You can pick up your adventure wherever you left off, switching between your Xbox One and Windows 10 PC while dynamically taking your saved progress, Gamerscore, DLC, and achievements with you.
The release of Ark on Windows 10 also brings cross play, something we’re all very excited about. Whether playing on Xbox from the comfort of your sofa with a controller in hand, or at your Windows 10 gaming desktop, survivors with this Play Anywhere title can live on the ARK with their tribe across both platforms. You’ll be able to tame, harvest, dominate or uncover the secrets of the ARK with each other!
Want to jump into the cross play experience immediately? You can do so by browsing our official server network for servers titled “CrossPlay.” We’ve launched 24 servers, a mixture of PvE and PvP, clustered by region, available to play right now! All Official Servers may become cross play enabled in the future when a cross-platform anti-cheat system can be deployed, but you can already find a large quantity of player-hosted Dedicated & Non-Dedicated cross play sessions to join. You can even host your own 70-player dedicated server using the Windows 10 version of the game. See survivetheark.com for technical details on how to set up your own servers.
The launch of the Windows 10 version also brings single-player & non-dedicated split-screen to PC, and the non-dedicated tether range for Windows 10 hosts has been increased by 50%! Early in 2018, we’ll be removing the tether limit altogether in single-player split-screen, and a distance slider will be made available for Windows 10 non-dedicated sessions (which in-turn will be enjoyed by any Xbox clients playing with a Windows 10 non-dedicated host). We’ll also be working on bringing trueSKY, our volumetric weather system on Xbox One X, entirely to the Windows 10 version of the game.
I can’t tell you how excited we are to welcome Windows 10 players to the tribe! Online cross play and Xbox Play Anywhere support are awesome features that allow you to play Ark where you want and how you want. Personally, I’ll be gliding through the chambers of Ark: Aberration this holiday on my Rock Drake… sometimes from my couch on my Xbox One X and sometimes from my Windows 10 gaming laptop on the road. Enjoy this update and look forward to an exciting 2018 for Ark on Xbox and Windows 10!