Studio Wildcard co-founders Jeremy Stieglitz and Jesse Rapczak have confirmed that the studio's troubled pirate survival game Atlas is directly informing Ark: Survival Ascended's upcoming Tides of Fortune DLC, which will introduce customizable ship building and simulated ocean physics to the dinosaur survival title this summer.
Lessons Learned from a Troubled Launch
Atlas launched in December 2018 as an ambitious open-world pirate survival game, but it hit the water hard. Performance issues, stability problems, and a punishing design philosophy buried it under negative reviews from day one. Unlike Ark: Survival Evolved, it never found its footing.
Stieglitz was candid about why the game failed to connect with players, describing it as a cautionary tale in game design.
"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 told PC Gamer. "Atlas is, like, crazy cool tech, but a lot of game design lessons about what not to do."
The core problem was compounding friction. In Atlas, logs from felled trees could only be carried one at a time, ships were constructed plank by plank, and a single major defeat could erase 50 hours of progress. What sounds interesting in isolation became suffocating in practice.
"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.
What Tides of Fortune Brings to Ark
Despite Atlas's troubled history, Stieglitz says the underlying technology was genuinely impressive, particularly the sailing, water simulation, and ship physics. Those are the elements being carried forward into Tides of Fortune.
danger
The Tides of Fortune DLC is confirmed for this summer, but an exact release date has not been announced. Ship assets shown in current screenshots are placeholder assets from Atlas and do not represent final designs.Here's what players can expect from the new DLC:
- Customizable ship building with attachments, cannons, and player-built structures on deck
- Simulated ocean physics featuring realistic waves, foamy wakes, and dynamic lighting on water
- Reduced grind compared to Atlas, with ship crafting and replacement designed to be far less labor-intensive
- Dinosaur compatibility, because you'll still be able to bring your tamed creatures aboard
Rapczak highlighted that the ocean upgrade goes beyond just the DLC itself. "Ark's water is famously flat and uninteresting, and having network simulated ocean physics is cool," he said. "Not just for this, but also for modders and the general capability of the engine."
Ship deck customization options
Stieglitz emphasized that the studio's existing expertise with Atlas makes this technically feasible. "We know how to work the water systems. We know how to work the physics systems, the networking systems to pull that off," he said. "It builds on our expertise with those mechanics from Atlas, and we hope to distill it into a more accessible form than Atlas ever had."
The key here is that word: accessible. The Tides of Fortune version strips away the punishing loop that defined Atlas while keeping the parts that were genuinely fun. Losing your ship won't mean starting from scratch.
The Atlas Legacy
Atlas took place across a massive networked ocean world stitched together from multiple servers, letting players sail between them while gathering resources and fighting rivals. The ambition was real, but the execution created a game that actively punished players for experimenting or making mistakes.
You'll want to think of Tides of Fortune less as an Atlas sequel and more as a curated extraction of its best ideas, filtered through everything Studio Wildcard has learned about what makes Ark players tick.
Pro tip: If you were put off by Atlas back in 2018, this DLC is worth watching. The studio is explicitly building it to avoid the design traps that sank the original.
Source: Pcgamer
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the Tides of Fortune DLC for Ark: Survival Ascended?
Tides of Fortune is an upcoming DLC for Ark: Survival Ascended that introduces pirate ship building and simulated ocean physics. Players will be able to craft customizable ships, mount cannons, build structures on deck, and sail across a physics-driven ocean, with their tamed dinosaurs in tow.
Why is Atlas being referenced for the new Ark DLC?
Studio Wildcard, the developer behind both games, built Atlas in 2018 and developed deep expertise in ocean physics, water simulation, and ship networking systems. Rather than let that technical work go to waste, the team is applying those same systems to Ark: Survival Ascended in a more player-friendly form.
Will Tides of Fortune be as punishing as Atlas?
No. Studio Wildcard has specifically stated that crafting and replacing ships in Tides of Fortune will be far less labor-intensive than it was in Atlas. The goal is to keep the satisfying sailing and ship customization while removing the brutal progression loss that defined the original game.
