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11 Modular Crafting is the assembly system that builds weapons and tools in ARK 2. Items are not picked from a fixed catalog of finished objects; instead, the player chooses interchangeable components, and the combined module set determines both the weapon's stats and its visual finish. Studio Wildcard has cited millions of possible weapon-component combinations as a design pillar of the sequel. For wider context, see the Overview and the Combat System.
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33 How It Works
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77 Each weapon is assembled from a set of interchangeable components. A change to any component flows through to both the statistical profile and the visual finish, so the materials a player chooses are not a cosmetic skin on top of fixed stats; they are the stats. The same logic extends to tools and gear. This ties combat directly into the survival, gathering, and base-building loops, since gathered materials are the literal inputs that decide what a weapon does on swing.
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99 Why Modular
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1111 The modular approach is one of the three design departures Studio Wildcard has openly identified as why the Legacy of Santiago expansion exists as a Q4 2027 test bed. The other two are the locked third-person Souls-like combat direction and the smaller-tribe survival focus. Modular crafting matters to that test bed because it is a sharp departure from the fixed-blueprint progression of the previous game in the series. The team wants live telemetry on whether players engage with component swaps as a meaningful build choice, or whether they converge on a small set of optimal builds early on.
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1313 Confirmed Pillars
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1515 PillarWhat It MeansInterchangeable ComponentsWeapons and tools are assembled from a pool of swappable parts. Components drive both statistics and visuals.Stat-Visual CouplingMaterials chosen for a weapon change both how it looks and how it performs. Not a cosmetic skin layer.Millions of CombinationsStudio Wildcard has publicly cited millions of possible weapon-component combinations as a design goal.Primitive-Only at LaunchEvery weapon at launch is intended to be primitive. No Tek-tier energy rifles or laser swords at the start of the campaign.Crafting Drives CombatComponent choice feeds directly into the locked third-person combat layer. There is no decoupled stat sheet that lives apart from the materials.
1616 Relationship To Other Systems
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1818 Modular crafting sits at the intersection of three other ARK 2 layers. Gathering and survival feed component supply. The Combat System reads the assembled stats on swing. The smaller-tribe pacing of Tribes means resource pools are shared across a small cooperative group rather than stockpiled at industrial scale by a hundred-person faction. Each layer presses on the others: a tribe that fights more aggressively burns through certain component types faster, and a tribe that builds defensively burns through different ones.
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2020 Unconfirmed Details
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2222 TopicStatusComponent CatalogThe full catalog of base components and their stat ranges has not been published.Crafting UIWhether components are assembled in a workbench interface, an inventory drag-and-drop interface, or some other flow is not detailed.Tier ProgressionWhether components scale on a tier ladder or on a continuous quality axis is not stated.Repair and DurabilityNot announced. Whether weapons degrade, can be repaired with the same components, or share a per-weapon stamina bar with combat is open.Mod-Authored ComponentsMod support is confirmed cross-platform on both PC and consoles, but specifics on community-authored components, their balance gates, and how they interact with official components have not been published.Tool Crafting ScopeModular tools are referenced alongside modular weapons. The full scope (gathering tools, construction tools, traversal aids) has not been catalogued publicly.
2323 This article will be updated as the studio publishes specific components, stat ranges, and the crafting interface.