Studio Wildcard has partially walked back on their announcement regarding Ark: Survival Evolved, Ark: Survival Ascended, and Ark 2. Get comfy. It’s a doozy of a situation.
For those unaware, last week saw a community post from the developers behind the dinosaur survival game announcing Ark: Survival Ascended, a next-gen upgrade of the original title built using Unreal Engine 5. Would you care to download it as an add-on for your existing copy of the game? Think again, bozo!
The goofy and silly part is that the developer had the genius plan to only make the upgraded version available in two ways:
- For Xbox Series X|S and PC players, one would have to buy the Ark Respawned Bundle for $75, which comes with a copy of Ark: Survival Ascended and Ark 2, the unreleased sequel to the first game that is yet to have any gameplay footage shown to the public.
- For PlayStation 5 players, one can buy Ark: Survival Ascended for $60.
On top of that, the Explorer’s Pass and Genesis Pass featuring already-existing DLC would be $30 each and unavailable at launch. And on top of that, Official Servers for the original game would be shut down completely, meaning people would have no choice but to buy the new version if they want to continue playing officially online. Wahoo! How about it?
The general response was pretty much the same all around. Fans were understandably confused, with some thinking that the post was an April Fool’s joke of some sort. Some even suggested making the DLC part of the next-gen bundle, and guess what? That’s exactly what they’ve now done!
In a new post, Studio Wildcard hit us with a literal “our bad!” and walked the original bundle back. The team acknowledging complaints that players “wouldn’t be able to judge ARK 2 as no gameplay or content would be available yet,” and has scrapped the Ark Respawned Bundle.
Instead, Ark: Survival Ascended will now be released as “a standalone package release on every platform (PC Windows/Steam, Xbox Series S|X, and PlayStation 5) at $59.99”. At that price point of $89.95 AUD, all the Explorer’s Pass and Genesis Pass DLC and a little bit more will be included as well, with some of them still unavailable at launch. Like a Season Pass kind of thing.
As for Ark: Survival Evolved, that bad boy’s Official Network is still getting sunsetted on August 31st. This comes from the team ultimately deciding that development resources and time would be better utilised with the newer version rather than the older version. They do note, however, that the original will still be available to play online, just not through official means.
So is it better or worse than the original plan? Honestly, a bit of both. Better in the sense that they’re not forcing people to pay extra for DLC that they’ve potentially already bought before and isn’t out yet, and better in the sense that they’re not requiring people to put their money towards a game that they haven’t even seen gameplay for yet.
On the other hand, the decision to charge full price for what they’re calling a next-gen upgrade in a climate where Cyberpunk 2077 got that kind of thing for free is still a little weird to me. Sure, the developers have said that Ark: Survival Ascended is an ‘evergreen classic ARK experience’ that uses new technological advancements. However, it feels… Icky.
Leave a Reply