Vin Diesel's character in Ark 2 was originally written as a nerd: 'Yeah, that ain't gonna work'

Ark 2, starring Vin Diesel, was first revealed by Studio Wildcard way back in 2020, planned for a release in 2022. Long story short: Ark 2 is now coming in 2028.

But I've had some questions on my mind for the past, oh, six years or so, about Vin Diesel's involvement in Ark 2, especially because Vin Diesel (I cannot shorten his name to just "Diesel," sorry) was given the title of "President of Creative Convergence" for Studio Wildcard when Ark 2 was announced.

What the heck is a 'President of Creative Convergence'? What did Vin Diesel actually do at Studio Wildcard? How did Vin Diesel react upon learning that the game where he'd ride shirtless on a dinosaur was going to be delayed for six damn years? Did Vin Diesel throw someone through a window? This week I finally got to sit down with Studio Wildcard co-founders Jeremy Stieglitz and Jesse Rapczak to ask them all my burning questions. About Vin Diesel.

"Diesel, at the time especially, played a very large amount of Ark," said Stieglitz. "In the Survival Evolved days, he played it as much as any Ark pro player would. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours. Him and his kids, his partner, [they were] really good at the game. They played all the maps, they knew all the bugs, they knew all the exploits. They had their own tribe."

After partnering with Vin Diesel for Ark 2, Stieglitz said the movie star's role was working on how to best fit his character, Santiago, into the game's narrative.

"The character of Santiago existed before we started collaborating with Vin Diesel, but frankly, we kind of retconned the character a little bit to fit his archetype. The character was originally written as, like, a nerd, and we're like… yeah, that ain't gonna work," Stieglitz said, laughing. "He's gonna be a really buff, awesome nerd who can punch out anybody?

"So we retconned the character a little bit, but it fit because the character was also originally written as a gear head. We're like, that tracks well enough. And so he helped us rewrite the character's backstory a little bit."

I also asked if Vin Diesel had already recorded voice work for the character, wondering if Studio Wildcard had an entire performance from one of the world's biggest movie stars just sitting there on a hard drive somewhere.

"Very little. I mean, a little bit. Yes," Stieglitz said. "We got a few lines for Genesis 2, a few lines for the Ark 2 teasers, and a few lines also—spoiler—for the animated series that we're still working on. So it was a few lines here and there over various times, but nothing major yet."

I finally asked what was really on my mind: when they told Vin Diesel that Ark 2 was going to be delayed for years… did he pick anyone up and throw them through a window?

"That would have been an awesome experience," Rapczak said, laughing, before adding: "No comment."

"I think they're used to it in Hollywood," Stieglitz said. "I presume projects get delayed all the time, and you have projects sit on the shelf for decades, sometimes. Not that Ark 2 would sit on the shelf for that long. But we did tell them, yeah, we want to make Survival Ascended first. They were cool with it."