Studio Wildcard has announced that ARK: Survival Ascended, its next-generation remaster of ARK: Survival Evolved built on Unreal Engine 5, will now be available as a standalone game for PC (Windows/Steam), Xbox Series S/X, and PlayStation 5 for $59.99. The new price is up to $20 more expensive than the original options that were announced, and while fans are still annoyed at how the developer had claimed the upgrade would be completely free, it does include what appears to be all of the expansion content, which Studio Wildcard had attempted to charge separately. “At the end of the day, these are just words, and, frankly, may not mean so much,” the developer admitted at the end of its post, although it remains hopeful that the first screenshots and gameplay trailer for ARK: Survival Ascended, which are coming “in time,” will help it win its fans back.
From an ARK Community Forums post:
ARK: Survival Ascended will now be a standalone package released on every platform (PC Windows/Steam, Xbox Series S/X, and PlayStation 5) at $59.99. The package will include the following pieces of content built-in (not sold separately), with each remastered and altered for the next-generation:
- The Island (Released at Launch)
- Survival of the Fittest: The Island & Scorched Earth map variants (Released at Launch)
- Scorched Earth (Released at Launch)
- Aberration (Released by Q4 2023)
- Extinction (Released by Q1 2024)
- Genesis Part 1 (Released by Q1 2024)
- Genesis Part 2 (Released by Q2 2024)
- All the community-created maps are also to be released over time in 2024 (Fjordur, Ragnarok, The Center, Lost Island, Valguero, Crystal Isles)
We plan to support ARK: Survival Ascended with new features (including at launch), content drops, creatures, items, structures, and DLC. Our roadmap covered some of those planned changes, and we said there would be more, and here’s another preview:
- 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 (I know we mentioned this before, but we’re serious, it’s happening on PC and Consoles at launch, and we’ve got it working internally with Overwolf technology – this dramatically changes the nature of the console experience).
We weren’t trying to mislead you with earlier comments; our plans and overall intentions changed. So you’re probably asking, why don’t we make these upgrades to the original ARK: Survival Evolved (ASE)? Frankly, it would not be viable. Many of the changes we’re making in ARK: Survival Ascended will touch a lot of aspects of the game; it’ll invalidate save data, some mods may not be functional, some things may not play the same way as they did before, and we didn’t want to change that experience for those who prefer it or are unable to upgrade.
Discussion (2 replies)
Join Discussion →This is why ALL gamers needs to scream at devs/pubs stating very LOUD and clear that: "WE ARE NOT YOUR FREAKING FANS [no longer] but we are YOUR FREAKING PAYING CONSUMERS and if you keep refusing to RESPECT AND ACKNOWLEDGE IN ACTION that simple understanding... PROUDLY, well, there's ALWAYS the high-seas!"
For this... well, a new game engine is a big deal, and most companies do charge something for remasters. Not all - some are awesome, but it seems most do.
But.. if you came out the gate saying it's gonna be free... and you don't make it free - you kinda screwed something up somewhere.
I see games in three different categories.
There are those that aren't worth my time or money - I may pick them up if they are free "just in case" I get bored enough one day, but they do nothing but sit there in my library.
There are those that I dabble with - they are worth some time, but not my money. A lot of Asian MMOs have come under this category for me: Free to Play, and I certainly play them free while they are fun, and as soon as the grind or the cash grab hits, I take my attention elsewhere.
Conversely, there are a select few titles where I have bought them but never played them - just to support the developer. Most recently, Dwarf Fortress: I just like the story of how that game came together and want to support things like that. I've done that for a lot of OS X games as well back in the day.
And then there are those very few titles that are worth both. I sink dozens, hundreds, on a select few titles ~thousands~ of hours on them. I am happy to pay (a reasonable amount) for things in those games. I enjoy them, and I don't mind paying for that. Everquest was probably my biggest offender back in the day - I spent a lot of time and money there, but I had a lot of fun and some great memories of it, and there have only been a couple of MMOs since then that even compare. Non-MMO titles, Factorio has a ton of my time and I like it so much I've bought copies to hand out to my friends.
But yeah, if a game falls in that last category - I don't care if they charge for the remaster at all, and I'm happy to pay it (if EQ ever did this rather than cranking out carbon copy expansions living off level creep I'd probably run back there with my wallet hanging open). But if it's any of the other categories... meh, I'll either wait for it to go on sale, wait for it to be given away in a Humble Bundle or on EGS... or I just won't bother and not think twice about it.