Studio Wildcard wants PS4 owners to ask for early access
"It's unfortunate that some gamers can't experience that right now and take part in development as the Xbox players are"
Studio Wildcard has advised PlayStation 4 owners to approach Sony about starting an early access program, so they can be involved in the experience being offered to players of Ark: Survival Evolved on Xbox One.
In an interview with Gamespot, Studio Wildcard's creative director, Jesse Rapczak, admitted to excitement about the game's PlayStation 4 release. However, he also revealed that a lot of PS4 players had been specifically asking about the possibility of an early access release - similar to the one it received on PC and through the Xbox One's Preview program.
"We just kind of got to say, 'Well you know, it's not really up to us. It's the way Sony runs things, the game pretty much has to be finished,'" he said.
"There are a few exceptions that we're not quite sure why they made an exception for one game or the other, but Ark is in the state where at present time, unless it's finished, it's not coming out on PS4 until they have some other program that allows us to do that."
"I do encourage anybody who's a PlayStation fan and has a PS4 to ask Sony for the program"
Rapczak noted the unexpected levels of success Ark: Survival Evolved has enjoyed on Xbox Live, both in terms of the player experience and hard numbers. The experience offered by persistent, pre-release survival games like Ark is relatively well understood by PC players, but it's unique to many console owners.
"Players told us that this is their favorite game ever," Rapczak said. "You get a lot of people I think that are surprised that a game like this is on console with this type of gameplay, that they hadn't played a game quite like this before."
Ark is now at 105,000 unique players a day, which is, "way more concurrent players than the PC game ever had." In total, across both Xbox and PC, Ark: Survival Evolved is brushing up against 200,000 daily players at peak times. And with so many people actively contributing to improving the experience, Rapczak believes that PS4 owners will benefit in the long run.
"All of the feedback we're getting from Xbox is really great for whatever console we ever launch Ark on," he said. "It's unfortunate that some gamers can't experience that right now and take part in development as the Xbox players are, but you know, I do encourage anybody who's a PlayStation fan and has a PS4 to ask Sony for the program; maybe they'll decide to let a game like ours be in an early access-type program."