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Studio Wildcard
April 26, 2026 at 12:01 PM
Expanded studio profile with founder table, notable games, ownership history, Vin Diesel's senior role, Grove Street Games co-development, the risk-conscious Legacy of Santiago test bed strategy, and unconfirmed details (2026-04-26)
Studio Wildcard is the American developer behind the ARK franchise and the developer and publisher of ARK 2. The studio is best known for ARK: Survival Evolved (2017) and the Unreal Engine 5 remaster ARK: Survival Ascended (2023), and is now leading work on the sequel covered across this wiki. For a high-level summary of the new game, see the Overview page.
Field | Detail |
|---|---|
Founded | October 2014 (as Wildcard Properties LLC) |
Founders | Doug Kennedy (CEO), Jeremy Stieglitz (Co-Founder and Lead Designer/Programmer), Jesse Rapczak (Creative Director), Susan Browning Stieglitz |
HQ Offices | Redmond, Washington and Gainesville, Florida |
Parent | SDE Inc., a Snail Games USA affiliate of Snail Games (parent listed on Nasdaq) |
Co-Developer on ARK 2 | Grove Street Games (Development and Technical Director Thomas Williamson) |
Role on ARK 2 | Lead developer and publisher |
Title | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|
ARK: Survival Evolved | 2017 | Debut title. Early Access June 2015, full release August 2017. Over 76 million copies sold cumulatively across all platforms. |
ARK: Survival Evolved Expansions | 2017 to 2021 | Paid expansion run including Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, and Genesis: Part 1 and Part 2. Genesis: Part 2 sets up the bridge into ARK 2. |
ARK: The Animated Series | 2024 | Animated companion series. Vin Diesel reprises Santiago and serves as executive producer. |
ARK: Survival Ascended | 2023 | UE5 remaster of the first game. Early Access October 25, 2023; crossed four million units by December 2025. |
ARK 2 | 2028 target. See Overview. | Sequel on UE5 with Grove Street Games as co-developer. Locked third-person, soulslike primitive melee, smaller-tribe survival. |
The company was founded in October 2014 as Wildcard Properties LLC by Doug Kennedy (CEO), Jeremy Stieglitz, Jesse Rapczak, and Susan Browning Stieglitz. Stieglitz had recently exited a previous studio under a one-year non-compete clause. ARK: Survival Evolved entered Steam Early Access in June 2015 and reached full release in August 2017, becoming the studio's flagship product with over 76 million copies sold cumulatively. On October 25, 2023, the studio launched ARK: Survival Ascended, a UE5 remaster that surpassed four million units sold by December 2025 and is the studio's primary live-service runtime today.
In December 2015, Wildcard Properties LLC was acquired by SDE Inc., a Snail Games USA affiliate, through a merger with a subsidiary called Snail Ark Inc. The corporate parent has been Snail Games ever since. Snail Games is publicly listed on the Nasdaq exchange and reports ARK franchise figures in its consolidated results. Its 2025 Investor Day re-confirmed the 2028 target window for ARK 2.
Vin Diesel's involvement runs deeper than a voice role. Since 2020 he has held the title of President of Creative Convergence at Studio Wildcard, a senior creative-leadership position covering franchise direction across games, animation, and licensing. He is credited as executive producer on ARK 2 and on the connected animated series, and he voices and performs as Santiago da Costa.
ARK 2 is not built solely in-house. The credited co-development partner is Grove Street Games, brought in to share the engineering and production workload alongside the live-service obligations on Survival Ascended. Their director, Thomas Williamson, serves as Development and Technical Director on ARK 2. The partnership is why the team can keep shipping content for the UE5 remaster while a sequel of this scope is in active production.
Studio leadership has been openly cautious about launching a sequel of this size as a single release. To reduce that risk, the team has moved several of ARK 2's signature mechanics into a Q4 2027 paid expansion for the UE5 remaster called Legacy of Santiago. That expansion is not ARK 2 itself; it is a public test bed for soulslike combat, advanced traversal, smaller-tribe pacing, and the primitive-only weapon ramp, shipping to a live audience inside the older runtime so the team can iterate before the sequel arrives.
Jeremy Stieglitz has framed the strategy bluntly: every game can have an expansion pack that is a miss and the team can move on, but if a whole new game misses, it can be company-ending. Pulling the new mechanics into a tested expansion ahead of time is the studio's response to that exposure.
Several aspects of the studio's current operation have not been published. The total Studio Wildcard headcount, the number of Grove Street Games staff on ARK 2, the split of responsibilities between the two studios, the internal team structure beyond named leadership, and any future projects beyond ARK 2 and the existing Survival Ascended live-service plan have not been confirmed. This page will be updated as the studio publishes additional details.
