Ark's VR Tie-In Game Lets You Live Out Your Jurassic Park Fantasies

[UPDATE] It's now been confirmed that Ark Park is also coming to HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, in addition to PlayStation VR.

The original story is below.

A virtual reality experience based on dinosaur game Ark: Survival Evolved is coming to the PlayStation 4 virtual reality headset PlayStation VR and other VR devices. Developer Snail Games today announced Ark Park, which lets you virtually visit a Jurassic Park-like compound full of extinct creatures.

You can embark on journeys to a number of different biomes, featuring different dinosaurs and other creatures (a Dodo bird is show in the trailer) to interact with. You can explore on foot, in a vehicle, or on the back of a dinosaur in some cases. These adventures, called Excursions, can be done solo or with friends with multiplayer.

Another element of the game involves collecting "Gene Cubes" that are scattered around the world to add creatures to their libraries. "Determined visitors will need to use a combination of puzzle-solving logic, action skills, exploration, and careful resource management to bag the most prized animals," Snail Games said in a post on the PlayStation Blog.

The Gene Cubes are then uploaded to Ark Park's Hub world, allowing players to go back and learn more about them later. Once you've done that, you can upload tame versions of the dinosaurs to a petting zoo where you can feed and interact with them without the fear of getting eaten. In the petting zoo, players can customize the creatures, too, including their color.

Ark Park ties in to Survival Evolved and the Scorched Earth expansion in that you can upload creatures from those games and bring them into Ark Park's petting zoo.

There is also a "Snap" mode where you can take pictures of creatures, while there is a selfie stick item in the game, too, because it is 2016 after all.

Ark Park was developed by Snail Games' Peacock Studio, with input from Ark creator Studio Wildcard. The game is scheduled to launch in 2017 for PlayStation VR; it remains to be seen if it will come to other VR platforms.

An in-development version of Survival Evolved launched on PS4 earlier this month. The game is also available for Xbox One and PC, also in an unfinished state.

This story has been updated.