ARK: Survival Evolved launched worldwide into all regions of the Xbox Game Preview Program on Dec 16, and by the end of the first week we were blown away by the Jurassic number of new players experiencing the ARK universe (and we were scrambling to put up more servers)! In under a week ARK was downloaded over 1,000,000 times and Survivors had lasted a combined 200,000 real-life days against the dinosaurs and perils of the island, including other players! There’s no question that survival games have taken the PC world by storm lately, and as the only true large-scale multiplayer survival game available on console, perhaps it comes as no surprise that ARK’s daily Xbox One player count is already bigger than on PC.

So where do we go from here? There are still at least 7 months remaining until ARK’s final release on all platforms. During that time you can expect community feedback to be integrated into the Xbox One version of the game with regular updates about every two weeks. This will eventually include highly-demanded features like split screen support, gamepad customization, UI improvements, tweaks to current game modes, balancing improvements and all the new content that is going into the PC version. That’s awesome considering there is already three times as much content in the game today compared to the PC launch 7 months ago.

You can get involved at www.survivetheark.com, on Twitter @SurviveTheArk, and through ARK’s Game Hub on the Xbox One Dashboard. Thousands of players are already providing feedback, suggestions, and bug reports that even helped us issue hot fixes over the holidays to both the game and servers. We extend a dino-sized THANK YOU to the community for embracing the exciting and unique opportunity of Microsoft’s Xbox Game Preview program by immediately jumping in to play and positively impact ARK’s Xbox One development in such a measurable way.

Kudos also to Microsoft, Xbox and the ID@XBOX teams, who have gone above and beyond the past few months to help us meet our timeline for launch this holiday season. We’re finally taming and riding dinosaurs from the comfort of our living rooms due in no small part to their efforts and support.

Speaking of which, the first new creature drops in only a few short weeks. It’s furry and has a human-sized pouch. Will you be ready?

See you on the ARK!