ARK Survival Evolved celebrates three years since launching (into early access)

The weird thing about games that linger in early access and other forms of pre-launch launch and soft launch is that they rack up multiple birthdays and anniversaries. It’s like people who get married again or renew their vows – do you send them gifts for each one? Which one really counts?

For ARK Survival Evolved, early access seems to be the preferred day to celebrate, and that’s just what the game is doing this week as it celebrates its original early access launch three years ago on June 2nd. (The actual launch, you’ll recall, was in August of last year. Not sure why they are saying it was September. ‘Twas August!)

In its birthday thread, the studio recaps the last year of development, including Aberration (which was well-received), the mobile version, and the ARK Park and PixARK spinoffs. Most recently, the team’s announced TLC 2 with its “new look and new abilities to the Argentavis, Parasaur, Raptor, Sarco, Spino, and Trike.”

Here’s some of our more recent coverage of the game:

And of course, MJ streams the game for us frequently on her semi-public server – here’s the latest batch in 2018: