Snail Games’ Aquatica expansion for Ark: Survival Evolved has landed itself a release date.
The DLC will make its debut later this month, on 15th July, via Steam. Ark: Aquatica will submerge players under the waters, tasking them with “new survival mechanics, extreme environmental hazards, a huge explorable map area, and unique gameplay elements”.
It will additionally introduce 21 new tameable creatures, as well as 74 new Engrams (including 7 tek Engrams), and “underwater survival thanks to things like air pockets and propulsion vehicles”.
Perhaps feeling a sense of ‘once bitten, twice shy’ due to those AI slop accusations from earlier this year, the developer has released a really very, very brief release date teaser for the upcoming expansion, which you can see below.
Snail Games and Ark: Aquatica made headlines back in March, when a trailer released during GDC was clearly AI-generated.
The video – which is no longer available to view on YouTube – featured things like a single person using three hands to hold onto a spear gun, as well as fish phasing in and out of existence, an octopus with the wrong number of tentacles and a human with flippers where there should have been feet.
Soon after this trailer for Ark: Aquatica went live, Snail Games moved to distance itself from the video, blaming its marketing team. “They took our assets and then ran them through an AI to animate them. That was marketing,” lead game designer Matt Kohl said in March.
At this time, Kohl stated: “There has been no AI use in development of Aquatica.”