Recent reports suggest that "Ark: Survival Evolved" will be featuring a farm animal named Ovis Aries. The Animal is a sheep and it is expected to arrive on all platforms. On this regard, Studio Wildcard made a recent announcement altering its previous statement.

The earlier statement said that players will be able to get Ovis Aries after the victory of the game in the Steam Awards for the "Best Use of a Farm Animal" category. This led to serious bribery controversies after which the company made its amended announcement which said, players will be able to find Ovis Aries no matter what happened to the award.

Ark's the first statement on Ovis Aries

Detailed reports on this regard in Polygon, explains a post by Ark: Survival Evolved's Lead community manager and associate producer on a community page on Dec.26, 2016. In his post-Jat Karunakaran has expressed that players can unlock Ovis Aries. His post said that if Ark won the award, Studio Wildcard will ensure that Ovis Aries will quickly make its first appearance in the upcoming major version update. This attracted a lot of criticism stating that Studio Wildcard is expecting players to pledge to vote with a bribe.

Ark and Steam Awards-The Bribery Controversy

According to Polygon, Ark: survival Evolved had been nominated for the "Best Use of a Farm Animal" category in Steam Awards which will be awarded by selecting the winner from user votes. It is a well-known fact that the game does not have any traditional farm animal. It is only the dinos that are trained to harvest and do the farming. Hence, adding a farm animal into the game will technically add strength to the game's nomination into the category. Studio Wildcard decided to include a Sheep named Ovis Aries into the game so that the game is more legitimate for such a nomination. However, the announcements that came after the inclusion was not handled well.

The Second Announcement on Ark: Survival Expansion

According to MMORPG, the first announcement that Jat Kirubakaran made did not come out well as many Ark players felt that it was an act of bribery coercion. However, Studio Wildcard realized the impending issue and removed the post immediately. Later the game maker again introduced the Sheep, Ovis Aries as a token of celebration for having been nominated for the Steam Awards. Studio Wildcard also confirmed that players can unlock Ovis Aries no matter whether they win the Steam Award or not. It also stated that the Ovis Aries will be featured in the next major update of the game.

User Response

However, the game makers did not mention anything more on when and what the next Ark: Survival Evolved expansion is going to be. While there are still some fans who made fun off the last announcement, the overall reception for the news is positive. Players feel that Ovis Aries are easy to breed farm animals and that they can also be used for harvesting fur.