ARK: Survival Evolved Upgrade in Unreal Engine 5 Will Now Be Sold as a Standalone Game for $59.99

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Image: Studio Wildcard

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.

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Tsing Mui
News poster at The FPS Review.

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