Ark: Survival Evolved adding Iron Man suits, cyberdinos

Iron Man-like supersuits of power armour are coming to Ark: Survival Evolved [official site], developers Studio Wildcard have announced, as part of the end-game 'Tek' tech tier. You might begin the multiplayer survival sandbox wearing grubby underpants and waving rocks and sticks, but eventually players will be supersprinting, jetpacking, superpunching in power armour, and riding dinosaurs caked in cyberguns like Dino-Riders toys. But it's not all punching dinosaurs in the face; the Tek tier will also bring new buildings like undersea bases. Have a butcher's at cyberdinos in this trailer:

Ridiculous scenes. I'm in favour of all of them. Especially the person in power armour supersprinting straight through the walls of a wooden cabin. I'll also highlight the jetpacks. And the dinoguns, while I'm at it. Some words from Wildcard:

"The TEK Tier will put players in power armor granting them advanced abilities, and add powerful TEK saddles with mounted energy weapons to the capabilities of some favorite dinos. Want to snipe at enemy tribes with a plasma rifle while tearing across the map with a jet pack? How about living under the ocean in a vacuum sealed Underwater Base, fully protected from the hazards of land and sky?"

Underwater base, yes please thank you.

While most sandbox worlds are fairly conservative, I do like that Ark keeps adding whatever goofy cartoon fun it can imagine. Archaeopteryx hang gliders? Go for it! Amphibian air bags? Why not! Iron Man? Absolutely!

The Tek tier will arrive across a string of updates "in the coming weeks and months."

Now if only Wildcard could deliver major performance optimisations Ark desperately needs. It's still in early access, of course, but really does need to get its skates on.