“Ark: Survival Ascended to be Released as Standalone Game, Servers to Shut Down in August”

Studio Wildcard has announced that Ark: Survival Ascended will only be released as a standalone game at the end of August. The PC and Xbox versions of the Ark: Survival Evolved remaster will no longer be bundled with Ark 2. The remaster will cost $60.

The developer further addressed the criticism it received on Steam for wanting to bundle the PC and Xbox versions of Ark: Survival Ascended with Ark 2. Players criticized this decision for not allowing the next-gen version of Ark: Survival Evolved , and all accompanying DLC, would have to purchase again and because they also have not yet received an indication of how the successor, Ark 2, will perform.

The developer claims in the blog post that the upgrade to the Unreal 5 engine is drastic. Many elements of the game have reportedly been modified, which has resulted in Ark: Survival Evolved save files and certain mods no longer being compatible with Ark: Survival Ascended. Partly because of this, a standalone next-gen version was chosen instead of an update of the original game.

The servers of Ark: Survival Evolved will be shut down on August 31. Studio Wildcard believes that the servers run on old technology and require a lot of maintenance to stay online. Gamers who still want to play Ark: Survival Evolved with friends can do one player hosted run session to do that.

The remaster of the popular survival game will receive all DLC according to Studio Wildcard: expansions The Island, Survival of the Fittest and Scorched Earth will be available as soon as the game hits stores. Expansion Aberration will be released in the fourth quarter of 2023, Extinction will be released in the first quarter of 2024. Genesis Part 1 is expected in the first quarter of 2024, while Genesis Part 2 will be released in the second quarter of next year.