Studio Wildcard has announced that ARK: Survival Ascended, a remastered version of ARK: Survival Evolved, will now be released in October rather than August 2023, citing unforeseen challenges with developing the game on the latest version of Epic Games’ newish engine, Unreal Engine 5.2. Accompanying that is some additional bad news for ARK fans, in that the remastered version of Scorched Earth, the first paid DLC expansion for ARK: Survival Evolved, won’t be coming until December, with others to follow in 2024. That said, ARK: Survival Ascended will now be launching at an Early Access price point of $44.99, while a launch discount that brings the cost down to $39.99 will also be available.
We’ve found it challenging working with Unreal Engine 5.2, but at the same time, it is incredibly exciting. We’re discovering new ways each day to push the technology to the next level; combined with the work needed to support a fully cross-platform-moddable game ecosystem on consoles and PC, it’s clear that we’ll need a bit more time.
We’ve also decided to separate the release date of The Island and Scorched Earth. With what we’ve learned about remastering The Island from the ground-up, it wouldn’t be feasible to complete Scorched Earth to a standard we’re happy with. So for now, we’re going to plan that Scorched Earth will be coming to ASA in December this year, Ragnarok and Aberration will follow in Q1 2024, and the rest of the maps beyond then.
