Players who have yet to jump into the world of Ark: Survival Evolved will have an opportunity to do so completely free of charge this weekend on Steam, developer Studio Wildcard announced today.
The free weekend event is already live as of this writing and will conclude on Sunday, Aug. 30 at 4 p.m. ET. Studio Wildcard also teased some coming updates, including DirectX 12 support on Windows 10.
Ark will also have a special “one-time-only” Extinction Event Meteor Impact this weekend. Special servers will house this new event in which a giant meteor will crash into the Ark, culminating in the destruction of those Arks and their respective servers at 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday, Aug. 31. Playing on these special Extinction Event servers will provide the opportunity to find supply crates that might contain Steam codes for 50% of Ark: Survival Evolved or even a free copy of the game itself. However, if you are killed while carrying the Steam code, your murderer can steal your Steam code away from you.
Another event, Survival of the Fittest: Unnatural Selection will also take place this weekend, running from Saturday, Aug.29 at 6 a.m. ET until Monday, Aug. 31 at 11 p.m. ET. This event is akin to the Survival of the Fittest mod that was released by Studio Wildcard earlier this month to celebrate the official launch of the Ark mod tools. Players will compete in teams of four against hundreds of other players “for a chance to ride the Dragon and earn cash prizes!”
At the start the 2.5-hour battle, players can choose to run for the cache of items at the center of the initial spawn point, battling it out with other players, or simply run the other way and develop a different strategy. As with the previous Survival of the Fittest event, there size of the field in which the fight is taking place will continually shrink as time goes on, forcing opposing players to confront each other.
Winning teams will advance to a Pre-Championship Tournament, taking place on Sept. 1 at 10 a.m. ET. From the Pre-Championship Tournament, 36 teams will remain. Those 36 teams will fight in the 144-player Championship Match on Sept. 1 at 2:30 p.m. ET. The Championship Match will last 4.5 hours and be streamed on the SurvivetheARK Twitch channel. Teams in the Championship Match will be competing for the following prizes:
- Championship First Place Winning Team receives: $20,000 split 4 ways
- Championship Second Place Winning Team Receives: $10,000 split 4 ways
- Championship Third Place Winning Team Receives: $4,000 split 4 ways
- All 144 Players who make it into the Championship Match get a $100 Steam Gift Card
Will you be jumping into Ark: Survival Evolved for the first time this weekend? Let us know in the comments below.
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