Studio Wildcard campaigns for Early Access service on PlayStation

Ark: Survival Evolved creator Studio Wildcard is encouraging PlayStation to allow devs to launch in-development titles on the platform.

Studio Wildcard co-founder and creative director Jesse Rapczak told GameSpot that the lack of a service comparable to Steam’s Early Access or Xbox’s Preview programme means that PS4 players will have to wait until the survival game’s full release.

“We wish Sony had an early access program, and a lot of people have been asking us for it,” he said. “We just kind of got to say: ‘Well you know, it’s not really up to us. It’s the way Sony runs things, the game pretty much has to be finished.’”

Rapczak made reference to the fact that only specific games are available in pre-release build forms through Sony’s Alpha release model, and encouraged fans to campaign for wider availability of in-development titles.

“There are a few exceptions that we’re not quite sure why they made an exception for one game or the other, but Ark is in the state where at present time unless it’s finished, it’s not coming out on PS4 until they have some other programme that allows us to do that,” he explained.

“It’s unfortunate that some gamers can’t experience that right now and take part in development as the Xbox players are but, you know, I do encourage anybody who’s a PlayStation fan and has a PS4 to ask Sony for the programme; maybe they’ll decide to let a game like ours be in an Early Access-type programme.”

Early Access continues to grow in popularity as a concept; last week, GOG became the latest storefront to implement a way to buy games still in the midset of development.