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ARK: Survival Evolved celebrates 5 years, is free on Epic Games Store for one week

ARK: Survival Evolved is already five years old and it's celebrating with a big five-year anniversary event. And you can pick it up for free right now on the Epic Games Store.

Ozzie Mejia

June 12, 2020 6:30 AM

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It may be hard for some to believe, but ARK: Survival Evolved is five years old! Where has the time gone, right? But it's true, the dinosaur-filled survival game is celebrating its fifth anniversary and developer Studio Wildcard is celebrating with a special in-game event, as well as a free promotion on the Epic Games Store.

ARK's five-year anniversary event is already underway and Studio Wildcard is doing this birthday bash right. They have Party Dodos, a special interactive cake, all-new chibis, and even unicorns on rainbows. Hey, this is a game with dinosaurs, so why not have unicorns, too? Players can also find 2x breeding rates, as well as 4x bonuses for taming, harvesting, and XP.

On top of that, players will also find a new expansion map called Crystal Isles. As noted on the ARK Steam page, Crystal Isles began life as a mod back in 2016. It has since grown to 240,000 subscriptions, so the team at Studio Wildcard gave it a special promotion and made it an official map. Stretching out at 150 square kilometers, the dev team has also given the Crystal Isles a few new visual features. Beware of the new Tropeognathus, a flying pterosaur that's flying across the isles. If you can tame it, you're in for a wild ride.

There are some people who haven't yet discovered ARK and its unique survival aesthetic. Fortunately, they can pick up ARK: Survival Evolved for free right now from the Epic Games Store right now. It's part of the continuing Epic Mega Sale, which is running for one more week. Players can claim their free copy of ARK until Thursday, June 18.

The ARK: Survival Evolved five-year anniversary celebration will likewise run until Thursday, June 18. Shacknews likes a good party, so we'll keep an eye on this story and report on any continuing developments from the people at Studio Wildcard.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?