TheRetroArcade
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Joined: Feb 2026
The Tides of Fortune update will let players craft a customizable ship and sail it across a simulated ocean.
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Last week I sat down with Studio Wildcard co-founders Jeremy Stieglitz and Jesse Rapczak, mostly to grill them about Vin Diesel but also to talk about what's happening with Ark: Survival Ascended these days. I was surprised when Stieglitz started talking not about dinosaurs but pirates, bringing up another game Studio Wildcard had developed: Atlas.
Remember Atlas? The open world pirate survival game was put to sea in December 2018 but had a rough launch, including performance and stability problems that led to heaps of negative reviews. It's still out there: you can buy it and play it, but unlike Ark: Survival Evolved, Atlas never recovered from its shaky start.
"It didn't really work out for us, because it had some insane tech, some crazy cool ideas, but as a game loop, it had a lot of problems," Stieglitz said. "Atlas is, like, crazy cool tech, but a lot of game design lessons about what not to do."
Atlas took place in a huge, networked ocean world of stitched-together servers so players could sail from server to server as they battled each other and collected resources. It was a labor intensive game: logs from felled trees could only be carried one at a time, ships were built plank by plank, and defeat meant you basically had to start all over again.
"All these things sound very interesting in theory, but you put them all together, and what's the result? A game that's insanely punishing, and if you make one wrong turn you've just lost 50 hours of progress," Stieglitz said. "But what I did like about it was, I liked the sailing. I liked the water. I liked the physicality of the ships. Those things were satisfying."
That's why some parts of Atlas, at least in spirit, are being salvaged for Ark: Survival Ascended's upcoming Tides of Fortune DLC. This summer, Ark players will be able to build huge pirate ships and sail across simulated ocean physics in search of adventure.
"Ark's water is famously flat and uninteresting, and having network simulated ocean physics is cool," Jesse Rapczak said. "Not just for this, but also for modders and the general capability of the engine."
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"We know how to work the water systems. We know how to work ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
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Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
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From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
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Last week I sat down with Studio Wildcard co-founders Jeremy Stieglitz and Jesse Rapczak, mostly to grill them about Vin Diesel but also to talk about what's happening with Ark: Survival Ascended these days. I was surprised when Stieglitz started talking not about dinosaurs but pirates, bringing up another game Studio Wildcard had developed: Atlas.
Remember Atlas? The open world pirate survival game was put to sea in December 2018 but had a rough launch, including performance and stability problems that led to heaps of negative reviews. It's still out there: you can buy it and play it, but unlike Ark: Survival Evolved, Atlas never recovered from its shaky start.
"It didn't really work out for us, because it had some insane tech, some crazy cool ideas, but as a game loop, it had a lot of problems," Stieglitz said. "Atlas is, like, crazy cool tech, but a lot of game design lessons about what not to do."
Atlas took place in a huge, networked ocean world of stitched-together servers so players could sail from server to server as they battled each other and collected resources. It was a labor intensive game: logs from felled trees could only be carried one at a time, ships were built plank by plank, and defeat meant you basically had to start all over again.
"All these things sound very interesting in theory, but you put them all together, and what's the result? A game that's insanely punishing, and if you make one wrong turn you've just lost 50 hours of progress," Stieglitz said. "But what I did like about it was, I liked the sailing. I liked the water. I liked the physicality of the ships. Those things were satisfying."
That's why some parts of Atlas, at least in spirit, are being salvaged for Ark: Survival Ascended's upcoming Tides of Fortune DLC. This summer, Ark players will be able to build huge pirate ships and sail across simulated ocean physics in search of adventure.
"Ark's water is famously flat and uninteresting, and having network simulated ocean physics is cool," Jesse Rapczak said. "Not just for this, but also for modders and the general capability of the engine."
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
"We know how to work the water systems. We know how to work ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?