The community of the Survival hit ARK is currently only discussing two topics: the upgrade from ARK 1 to Unreal Engine 5 and the postponement of the sequel ARK 2 to the end of 2024. Especially the upgrade is currently causing a lot of discussions.
ARK: Survival Evolved can be told as a romantic gaming story. A small indie developer brings one of the biggest survival games ever to market, struggles through all the problems, and after almost 8 years still ranks among the top on Steam.
But there is also the other side. The one with the problems. ARK has bugs and glitches that haven’t been fixed for years. Moreover, developer Wildcard hasn’t always ensured that players felt well taken care of with its communication strategy.
A recent example shows the problems with communication. A senior employee announced the new upgrade to Unreal Engine 5 as “free.” Now Wildcard has presented the roadmap and shows: The upgrade actually costs at least €40, and the DLCs must also be repurchased.
The community is discussing the topic vigorously, and we have looked at some voices regarding this.
In a long trailer featuring guest appearance by Hollywood star Vin Diesel, Wildcard announced ARK 2 at that time:
How was the upgrade supposed to happen? Jeremy Stieglitz is one of the founders of Studio Wildcard. He commented on Twitter as early as January 2023 about the upgrade to the new engine:
Stieglitz wrote on Twitter: “To clarify: The UE5 teaser from a few weeks ago refers to a complete and free upgrade/remaster of ARK: Survival Evolved to Unreal Engine 5, which is currently in the works.”
In the comments on the tweet, initial assessments can already be found about how poorly this statement has aged.
What has now been announced? The details about the remaster and pricing modalities can be found here. In short:
- The remaster costs €40 on PS5
- Around €50 for Xbox and PC, because ARK 2 is included in the bundle
- There are 2 new season passes with the old DLCs, each costing around €20
- The remaster is set to be released in August 2023, and all public servers will transition to “the new ARK”
- Private servers and solo games are still possible in the old ARK
- ARK 2 is only coming at the end of 2024
What are the reactions like? Surprisingly mixed. There are currently some threads on Reddit discussing the topic (via reddit.com / via reddit.com).
The discussions are quite factual, partly peppered with memes, but not really angry about the announcement. In the two threads with almost 300 comments together, the most diverse opinions are collected.
Some frustration is sometimes palpable, such as from user Taolan13: “This somehow killed my enthusiasm for ARK 2, to be honest.” Or also from user CorbinDallas78: “My wife and I each have 5,000 hours and we will not pay for this rip-off.”.
But there are also many players who find the price for the upgrade completely reasonable. For example, user Ace_Wynter, who, however, sets conditions: “If they fix it – and I mean, if they really fix it – then I will buy it again.”.
Despite the chaotic announcement circumstances, ARK has managed to not turn its entire player base against it. With the retraction of a free upgrade suddenly carrying a price tag of €40, that’s already quite an achievement.
We also find your opinion on the subject exciting, so write us your thoughts in the comments.
If you want to inform yourself about ARK 2 now, take a look here: ARK 2: Release, trailer, gameplay – What we know so far
