Recently put on hold so that developer Studio Wildcard could double down on the core title, it’s been confirmed that multiplayer spinoff Ark: Survival of the Fittest will be merged back into Survival Evolved. 
Rather than launching as a standalone, free-to-play experience, Survival of the Fittest will now be available as a playable game mode within Survival Evolved, and those who have played SotF on PC prior to this update can continue to do so without having to own the base game. 
Console versions remain shelved, however, with Studio Wildcard planning to “take a step back and see how these changes pan out in the long term.”

“It is very important for us to see how SotF progresses and we want to make sure we’re making the right choices. We understand that these changes are quite big and will impact the future of game, but hope you can understand our reasons to do so and will continue to support the game mode you love.”
Acknowledging the magnitude of those changes, the developer then explained its reasoning behind folding Survival of the Fittest back into the core Ark experience, admitting that it simply isn’t “cut out for free to play mechanics.”

“To ensure that SotF would remain a success and a sound choice, Wildcard would have had to put a lot of resources and time into learning how to become a ‘free to play’ developer. We would have had to learn how to monetise a free game, notoriously thr...