Studio Wildcard and Overwolf announced today the release of nine Premium Mods for ARK: Survival Ascended (ASA) onto Xbox Series X/S, marking a groundbreaking milestone as ASA becomes the first game to enable professionally created Premium Mods to be sold to console players. While this practice is well-established in PC gaming, Studio Wildcard and Overwolf now enable creators and game studios to deploy, sell, and update their content directly to consoles dynamically. Premium Mods are available now for Xbox Series X/S and PC, with price points ranging from $2 to $10, with 50% of all revenue going to the creators. The Premium Mods are in certification for PlayStation 5 with plans to release asap
Jeremy Stieglitz, co-creative director and lead designer at Studio Wildcard, emphasized the versatility of the ARK dev kit’s simple framework, enabling creation of not just modes or cosmetics, but entire new games. “Experienced game developers can leverage the established ARK technical infrastructure as a base, allowing them to concentrate on crafting inventive gameplay and compelling narratives using Unreal Engine 5. Moreover, via ARK Survival Ascended’s mod deployment pipeline they can seamlessly playtest their creations on consoles without requiring specialized ‘developer’ hardware units. This streamlined approach removes many of the traditional barriers to console content creation, opening it up to smaller developers and hobbyist creators.”
Positioned between official DLCs and traditional mods, Premium Mods elevate the modding experience for gamers. Crafted by game studios and select community modders, these mods offer game-changing content, from new modes to sprawling maps. With hundreds of development hours invested, Premium Mods guarantee players high-quality, regular updates that enrich their gaming experience.
“UGC is becoming one of the industry’s largest growth engines. Through this initiative, Overwolf expands into a new creator category – game studios. This move ties into our bigger vision of UGC, where games become content platforms and studios evolve into creators on these platforms,” commented Overwolf CEO Uri Marchand.
ARK: Survival Ascended has integrated in-game mod discovery and management across PC, Xbox, and PS5 platforms, which is powered by CurseForge for Studios. This integration resulted in over 175 million mod downloads to date, with Premium Mods emerging as the most popular choice.
Premium Mods Now Available on Xbox Series X/S:
- ARK: Survive the Night game mode, developed by Blue Isle Studios, is set on Obsidian Isle, a dark and hostile world where survivors are thrust into a relentless battle for survival against hordes of horrific, zombie dinosaurs. Whether joining forces with others or braving the challenges alone, players must scavenge for resources, build fortifications and craft an arsenal of weapons and supplies to withstand the zombie threat.
- Svartalfheim Premium is a mod map for ARK developed by Nekatus, the maker of Valguero and Fjordur. A dwarven inspired map it’s a 33km² landscape full of mysteries, with no flyers, Dwarven Warrior enemies, new Alpha dino variants and more!
- Anomalocaris developed by Garuga123 is a creature mod. Within the shallows and depths of ARK’s Ocean’s, Anomalocaris lay in wait for their prey. A master of different hunting tactics, Anomalo utilizes many strategies for attacking and debilitating their prey! Whether it’s Venom, Mimicry, or Parasitic attacks, Anomalocaris will dispose of its’ victims with ease!
- Ark Omega Ascended by HexenLord is a mod like no other, providing procedural edits to creatures, players, items, and more. Over 1,000 versions of every creature exist in this mod, with abilities that range from being able to create black holes that pull in enemies to being able to create a protective bubble that redirects all incoming damage done to allies directly to the spell caster / tank.
- Gaia: Potions Plus by GaiaStudio is a world of personalized alchemy that unlocks 40+ consumable potions, all customizable through our in-game admin-settings UI found in the structure radial wheel. The wide array of potions offers everything from instant dino taming to healing, sonar vision, and even the ability to summon random dinos.
- Reverence by kelthezuad is a mountainous map with lush plains, thick jungles and ruins of an abandoned island world. The vast ruins, caves, and caverns allow for exploration above and below to find potential hidden treasures.
- GG SkyIslands by ragingarcher offers floating island to use as base of operations. The SkyIslands are themed for different environments and scenic to add an immersive and natural feeling to its existence. SkyIslands come in various sizes up to Epic variety and with multiple biomes available now with more coming soon inspired by official maps.
- Enclave: Survival Skyward by Look North World and partner Efecto Studios brings a new aspect to ARK – the skies! The jungle is filled with dangerous animals and treasure, and bases are now built in tall reclaimed skyscrapers. Explore and climb these towers, build a strong base, and travel to other towers using risky ziplines or even parachute down from above! Gather your team, create a sky castle, and protect it from everyone.
- Forglar Premium by Snowytrain is a new fantasy map featuring a wide array of biomes including snow, desert, a maze caves system and many bosses!
With the launch of ASA, for the first time ARK mods crafted on PC now run on consoles, with 1900+ mods now available for cross-platform play, and many more added daily. Everything from new weapons, armor, and creatures to fully-fledged game modes and high-quality maps are now easily available to both PC and console players through a dedicated Mod-browser found directly within the game. To view all the mods available visit the official home of ARK: Survival Ascended mods on the CurseForge page.
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