Major Hollywood talent attached to the series.
The Game Awards is usually the venue for splashy world premiere video game trailers–and that was certainly the case again this year–but this year’s showcase featured a surprise reveal of an animated series chock full of Hollywood heavyweights.
Ark: The Animated Series was announced shortly after the world premiere of Ark II starring Vin Diesel. As a franchise, Ark goes back to 2017 (with an Early Access that began in 2015), featuring an in-game universe in which prehistoric creatures live side-by-side with gun-toting humans. You can, of course, kill other humans and dinosaurs and really anything with a heartbeat and that seems to play out in the debut trailer for the animated series.
New biomes and creatures have regularly been added to the first entry, Ark: Survival Evolved, over the years, with 2020’s Genesis expansion featuring icy locales and unique fantasy-inspired creatures including the adorable Ferox (before it turns into a werewolf-like creature), the kraken-like Bloodstalker, and the draconic Magmasaur.
A pair of spinoffs accompany the mainline Survival Evolved.
Little is known about the new animated series except that it features a vaguely Legend of Korra aesthetic and features a who’s who cast including the likes of Gerard Butler, Elliot Page, David Tennant, Michelle Yeoh, Jeffrey Wright, Malcolm McDowell, Russell Crowe, among others.
More information on both Ark II and Ark: The Animated Series is expected on December 11th.
Top image: Ark: Survival Evolved on Switch promotional image.