ARK: Survival Ascended – Developers present new plans after community backlash

The plans for ARK: Survival Ascended, the upcoming Unreal 5 remaster of the survival game, were anything but well received by the community.
Now the developers present their new plan, which seems to be only slightly better received.

What was the upset?

In an announcement, the developers summed up all the feedback as they put it themselves. Players had used the Steam forums, the Steam reviews and also social media to vent their anger about Studio Wildcard’s plans.
The old plan was to buy the remaster in a bundle with ARK 2 for $50.

In addition to that, the developers also wanted to sell the two big DLC passes for an extra 20 dollars per pass, so that you would have to pay a whopping 90 dollars for all the content.

However, it is only clear that ARK 2 will not be released before the end of 2024 – and there was no gameplay to see.
Many complained that they were buying a pig in a poke.

The new plan

The new plan now includes the following: The Unreal 5 remaster ARK: Survival Ascended will now cost $60 and will be released as a standalone package.
However, this will include the following additional content:

• The Island (base game, available at launch)
• Survival of the Fittest on The Island & Scorched Earth (available at launch)
• Scorched Earth DLC (available at launch)
• Aberration DLC (planned for Q4 2023)
• Extinction DLC (planned for Q1 2024)
• Genesis Part 1 DLC (planned for Q1 2024)
• Genesis Part 2 DLC (planned for Q2 2024)
• All community maps available in Survival Evolved: Fjordur, Ragnarok, The Center, Lost Island, Valguero, Crystal Isles (scheduled to be released in 2024 in a distributed fashion).

All in all, the content that was supposed to cost $90 before is now available for $60, but there is no material from the Unreal Engine 5 remaster yet – no gameplay, no screenshots, nothing.
And that, of course, is also met with criticism from the community.

The developers also published another list of features that will be available with ARK: Survival Ascended:

• Dynamic navigation mesh and creature pathfinding overhaul (AI pathfinding)
• Photo Mode
• Nvidia DLSS
• Dino/Baby Management QOL
• Wild Babies
• Snap point improvements (new snaps, logic improvements)
• Character creation & customization improvements
• Cross-platform Multiplayer & Full Blueprint Modding

Server shutdown still planned

The planned server shutdown of the official ARK: Survival Evolved servers also caused a lot of criticism from the community, but the developers still want to follow this plan.

However, there will still be the possibility to backup all data of these servers in advance in order to upload them to privately hosted servers if necessary.
The Survival Evolved multiplayer including unofficial servers and the extensive mod database in the Steam Workshop will still be available.

Final ASE update in June 2023

As a farewell, ARK: Survival Evolved will receive a final content update. This is planned for June 2023 and will be released on the occasion of ARK’s 8th birthday.

As far as the content is concerned, it is only known that the creature Rhyniognatha will be added to the game, a giant insect that the players voted for.