Studio Wildcard is proud to conclude today the ARK: Survival Evolved “Unnatural Selection” Championship and ‘ARK Survival of the Fittest’ Tournament Event. The winners of the Preliminaries (which ran from August 29-31) have been invited to the Finale Match, to take place at 2 pm EST on Twitch.TV, and broadcast live from the Studio Wildcard offices in Seattle, WA. The stakes are huge and the competition is fierce and unforgiving, as a total of 144 contestants will find themselves forced to virtually murder each other to the death, in groups of four-player Tribes, to claim the ultimate victory.

The winning Tribes will receive a substantial Winner’s Check for $20,000:

• Championship First Place Winning Tribe will receive: $20,000 split up to four ways (depending on size of the Tribe)
• Championship Second Place Winning Tribe Will Receive: $10,000 split up to four ways
• Championship Third Place Winning Tribe Will Receive: $4,000 split up to four ways
• Each 144 Championship qualifiers will receive a $100 Steam Gift Card for joining the Championship game.

Watch the event live at 2 pm Eastern on Wednesday, September 2 on the “SurviveTheArk” Twitch channel for your chance to win free ARK Steam codes, as well as vote on which of the devastating “Evolution Events” the contestants will face, in real-time!

About the ARK Survival of the Fittest Contest

‘Survival of the Fittest’ Unnatural Selection features modifications to the ‘Survival of the Fittest’ ARK competitive game mode, including:

• The Dragon! At mid-way through the match, the Dragon becomes available for taming at the central platform. Beware however, he can only be ridden for a short time before he turns on his master! Furthermore, the dragon will reappear during extended sudden death to eliminate all remaining survivors if they are not sufficiently murdering each other!
• Four Player Tribes: Stay in competition longer as your skilled team has more shots at making it to the big-time!

Six New Evolution Events, for a Total of 14!

• The Beast Within: A Red mist permeates the ARK, driving its creatures insane. Even Herbivores become rabid and aggressive, and will attack you on-sight!
• Predator’s Night: Carnivore targeting ranges and Aggro towards Survivors are doubled, better keep your distance!
• Supply Overload: Supply crates are spawned at every potential location! Go get ‘em, but watch out for other Survivors!
• Double Taming: The ARK’s many creatures are cowed at the sight of the mighty Survivors. Taming speed is temporarily doubled!
• Harvesting Bounty: Better stock up, because it’s been a good year! Harvest while you can.
• Harvesting Famine: Harvesting will barely yield anything. Hope you’ve got some supply reserves!
• New Tame-able Creatures Roaming the ARK:  Gigantopithecus and Doedicurus!

The most popular open-world Early Access game on Steam, ARK: Survival Evolved brings a new level of depth to the survival genre with a unique blend of emergent multiplayer cooperation and competition. Players awake naked and starving on the beach of a mysterious island among a herd of other confused humans and must explore the vast island of ARK to survive. What is the secret to survival?

Developed by Studio Wildcard, in conjunction with Instinct Games, ARK: Survival Evolved will launch in June 2016 on Xbox One via the ID@Xbox program, PlayStation®4 with Project Morpheus support, and full release on Steam. The game is currently in Steam’s Early Access program and includes Oculus Rift VR support and an integration of Steam community features such as Steam Economy and Steam Workshop for custom maps and mods. Players can host private/LAN servers and have access to a custom-built version of the Unreal Engine 4 Editor for creating mods. The world of ARK is designed to be modder-friendly and ever-expanding!

To join our growing band of survivors, journey over to Steam to download the game. For the latest updates follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, subscribe to us on YouTube, visit the Website at www.playark.com and watch us tame and train leviathan dinosaurs on Twitch.TV.