Ark: Survival Evolved won’t update at its current frantic pace forever.

Ark: Survival Evolved has been updated at an admirable pace during its Steam Early Access period, which may well be one of the reasons why it’s been so successful.

Nevertheless, co-creative director Jesse Rapczak told Rock, Paper, Shotgun he team doesn’t intend to keep it up forever.

“Our pace of updates will slow down a lot as we get towards release, as we don’t want to be iterating on new stuff as we try to polish the game,” Rapczak said.

“We’ll see a slowdown. We have a target around the beginning of next year to start locking down and doing a formal alpha and beta period with the game, so that we can ship and really open up our options for release.”

Rapczak also said the Ark: Survival Evolved team will “soon” start work on the first expansion, “which is lots of extra gameplay hours and story extensions on top of the main game”, expected “a few months after release” of the core game.