Survival hit ARK closes the official servers to bring a remake to UE5 – but that comes with lousy performance

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ARK: Survival Ascended, the remake of the popular dinosaur adventure, was released in October, but the game came with problems.

What kind of remake is this?

  • Studio Wildcard, the developers of “ARK: Survival Evolved,” released a new game called “ARK: Survival Ascended” on Steam on October 25, 2023.
  • The console release is scheduled to take place in November, although it will only appear for next-gen, i.e. PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
  • ARK: Survival Ascended is a remastered version of the base game ARK: Survival Evolved, which will run on Unreal Engine 5 with nicer graphics and cleaner code. There should also be cross-platform modding so that console players can finally enjoy mods.
    • Remake or remaster? Recently it was unclear whether ARK: Survival Ascended was a remake or a remaster. The game’s first announcement mentioned a remaster (via survivetheark.com), but recently Wildcard described the title as a remake (via Steam). Since the term “remake” was also used after the release of the early access version, we are keeping it now.

    Controversy over shutdown of official servers

    What’s with the closure of the servers? When Studio Wildcard first introduced ARK: Survival Ascended on March 31, 2023, the developers also announced the closure of the official ARK: Survival Evolved servers – and that didn’t go down well with players as they feared a loss of their progress . The official shutdown of the servers took place on September 30, 2023.

    After Wildcard received harsh criticism for its shutdown plans, the studio explained the reasons behind the decision. In a statement on April 7, it said ARK: Survival Evolved’s official servers are based on “outdated technology” and require “significant development resources and time to operate and maintain” (via survivetheark).

    To counteract the loss of progress, the developers took a snapshot of the save states on the day of the shutdown, which was then made available to players. They could then continue playing with these saves on private servers or in solo lobbies.

    However, many players of the original game are not a fan of ARK: Survival Ascended because they have to repurchase all the content they already owned in ARK: Survival Evolved – especially if they want to play on official and non-private multiplayer servers.

    ARK: Survival Ascended is shown for the first time in the trailer

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    ARK: Survival Ascended receives a lot of criticism for poor performance

    What do the first players say? In addition to the improved graphics, ARK: Survival Acended should bring improved performance – but that’s exactly where the remake disappoints the first players.

    Many users on Steam criticize that you need high-end PCs for the game to run well. Although it looks very nice – that is often praised – the performance is very poor.

  • “ARK never looked so good! It feels like a completely new game […]. As far as performance is concerned, I can only confirm that you need good hardware. […] The more that happens in the game world, the more the FPS suffers (via Steam).”
  • “I love ARK…but this? […] The performance is simply terrible. Save your money! (via Steam).”
  • “The game is beautiful, but it runs terribly (via Steam).”
  • “It’s an expensive graphics update with a few QoL improvements. Anyone who loves ARK will love it even more thanks to UE5. Since I had fun with ARK: Survival Evolved, I’m happy to donate the €40 to Wildcard (via Steam).”
  • “The required performance is too blatant for the normal user (via Steam).”

    • So if you’re currently thinking about whether you should buy ARK: Survival Ascended, keep in mind that it has very high requirements and poor performance. But if that doesn’t matter to you, you can experience ARK with improved graphics.

    If you are not interested in buying the remake, but are still a fan of the dinosaur adventure, the upcoming release of the sequel “ARK 2” might be of interest to you. However, this will not be released for the PS5, but only for Xbox Series X|S and PC. You can read everything else about the release here:

    ARK 2: Release, trailer, gameplay – what we know about it so far

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