Ark: Survival Evolved creators’ new game is a massive pirate MMO called Atlas

Jeremy Stieglitz and Jesse Rapczak, the directors of Ark: Survival Evolved, have announced their new game at this year’s Game Awards, and it’s going to be a big one: The pirate MMO, called Atlas, is apparently 1,200 times bigger than Ark: Survival Evolved.

Atlas takes advantage of an Nvidia technology called “WaveWorks” to show off a new level of realistic water physics. If the game is going to be that big while focusing on the open seas, it better be able to compete with games like Sea of Thieves when it comes to the beauty of the water.

The trailer showed a mixture of monsters, seafaring and what looked like base-to-base combat. It’s a strange mishmash of styles, which should be interesting with the huge scale of the game. There’s a lot going on in a relatively short amount of time, which makes the tone feel a bit jumbled. But it’s neat to see a company go for this level of ambition.

Atlas will be released on PC, and will then come to Xbox One next year in the Game Preview Program.