The Steam hit ARK: Survival Evolved died a little on September 30, 2023. It is not dead, but an important organ has stopped functioning. A transplant is not expected, instead, the survival game is barely being kept alive while a new, younger, and prettier version called ARK: Survival Ascended is set to replace the old love.
Why is ARK shutting down the official servers? Studio Wildcard, the developers of ARK, announced on March 31, 2023, that ARK: Survival Evolved (ARK: SE) will receive a UE5 Remaster called ARK: Survival Ascended (ARK: SA), during which the official servers of ARK: SE will be shut down.
Shortly after the announcement, there was heavy criticism from players regarding the shutdown of the official servers, the price of the remaster, and the content.
The developers changed the price and content of the remaster in response to the criticism and stated that the official servers of ARK: SE will be shut down because they are based on “obsolete technology” and that operation and maintenance “require significant development resources and time” (via survivetheark.com).
While there is still no gameplay for the ARK remaster, there is at least a trailer announcement for ARK 2:
What happens to the official servers of ARK? The official servers of ARK: SE have been shut down since Saturday, September 30, 2023.
On the day of the shutdown, however, a snapshot of the save data from the official servers was saved, which is to be made available to players so that they do not lose their progress completely and can continue playing on private servers or in solo lobbies if they are interested.
Additionally, it was stated in a blog post on September 23 on Steam:
You must ensure that your character is on the respective server before the saving takes place. […] Your items, dinos, and characters that have been uploaded to the ARK cloud will not be considered during the saving! So please make sure to download everything you want to keep from the cloud before the save on September 30.
Why will there even be an ARK remaster? In addition to the shutdown of the official servers, on September 30, there was a new blog post from Studio Wildcard (via Steam). There, the developers of the dino adventure name three reasons why they are developing ARK: SA at all.
On the one hand, according to Wildcard, the economic situation of the studio plays a role. In the blog post, the developers state that it has proven “difficult” to secure the “long-term survival of the studio” while developing ARK 2 without continuing to release paid expansions. The studio therefore wants to continue generating revenue during the development of the sequel.
Furthermore, the development team is supposed to improve its skills in working with UE5 while working on the remaster.
However, according to Wildcard, the most important reason is that they want to offer a classic ARK experience on a cleaned-up code, because ARK 2 is being conceived as a “Souls-like Adventure” and therefore deviates from the original ARK gameplay principle.
