ARK: Survival Evolved Modding Competition offers $25k in prizes

Mod entries have until October 6th to finish the mod, snap a screenshot and have it uploaded to ARK: Survival Evolved’s Steam Workshop. The modding possibilities for an open-world survival game is kind of limitless.

The ARK Dev Kit is a “streamlined version of the Unreal Engine 4 editor”, which allows simple creation and sharing of ARK: Survival Evolved mods. A console release was promised for “later this year”, but it looks like developer Studio Wildcard is going to take advantage of Microsoft’s new Game Preview feature to let Xbox One owners get a taste sooner rather than later.

If you’ve yet to dip your toes into modding Ark, here’s a handy tutorial.

Terms and conditions for the competition, as well as more details of what is involved can be found here. Players can submit diverse island maps, underground environments, game modes, new structures and items for a chance to win over $25,000 in cash and prizes. “Best of all, the full source content for the ‘Survival of the Fittest” mode is available within the ARK Dev Kit, so aspiring mod creators can see how this game-changing “Total Conversion” has been put together, and build on it or make their own!

With the new modding tools and contest it will no doubt get more attention from gamers, and modders looking to show off their skills.

Survival Evolved has gotten a lot of attention since its PC release on Steam Early Access. If you didn’t catch it, here are the deets: the mode was built using the mod tools you’ll be able to use yourself, and pits players against each other in an increasingly tense arena match which shrinks over time, forcing players to rub up against each other and, inevitably, kill each other.