You may still be thinking about the recent trailer for Snail Games’ Ark: Aquatica expansion, but not because it was so impressive it left a long lasting impression of wonder and awe. Rather, you probably still think about it because it was so unimpressive with its heavy handed use of AI slop.
“This is disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourselves,” reads one comment on the trailer’s YouTube page.
But, who was to blame for the trailer, which at the time of writing has amassed over 480k views, but only 1.7k upvotes on YouTube?
“That [trailer] was done by our marketing department,” lead game designer Matt Kohl told Aftermath. “They took our assets and then ran them through an AI to animate them. That was marketing.”
Kohl reiterated that the development team “did not do that” adding “there has been no AI use in development of Aquatica”. The designer said he didn’t “have any knowledge” as to why the marketing team decided to use AI for Ark: Aquatica’s trailer, which was revealed at GDC.
Kohl said we would all hear more closer to launch, but did highlight a brief gameplay trailer for Aquatica released by the developer, which you can see below. At the time of writing, Snail’s marketing team is yet to comment on last week’s trailer.
Trailer with actual gameplay from Snail Game’s ARK:Aquatica.
byu/RathinaAtor inARK
As for Ark more broadly, Ark 2, which was first announced all the way back in 2020, with a CGI trailer starring Vin Diesel, is yet to materialise. Last week, developer Studio Wildcard said it was still “dedicated to the production” of both Ark 2 and Ark: Survival Ascended.
Additionally, we have had a trailer for Ark expansion Lost Colony, which featured the character played by Michelle Yeoh from the Ark animated series.