If you’ve been following Ark Survival Evolved’s long journey, you understand that the game has been in development for years. Ark Survival Evolved has more or less evolved from a beta test to a full-fledged game. However, the developers of Ark, Studio Wildcard, have recently announced that they initially planned on creating a version of Ark Survival Evolved in Unreal Engine 5, making it a part of the second Ark game experience. Fans were very upset. And from the perspective of a fan, understandably so!
If fans don’t want to upgrade, this poses a problem for their previous game. If fans want to upgrade, that necessitates a purchase just for the final update of their game. Regardless of where Ark 2 falls into the mix, paying for an Unreal Engine 5 upgrade of the game simply didn’t sit well with fans. They went to forums, especially Steam, to complain and make their voices heard regarding the subject.
The developers have now reached out to fans, hoping to clarify their intentions. Wildcard said that their intention was to “provide a package where you got two products for the price of one.” Despite the best-laid intention, however, it seems no one was willing to buy the same game twice. Let’s not forget the fact that while the game was in beta, players still paid full price for the game.
How Will Wildcard Proceed?
The immense backlash against Ark Survival Evolved coming packaged with Ark Survival Ascended did turn up some results for the players. In response, the developers released the new plan: to list each game alone for players to buy. While the enhanced version still costs $59.99, it does help players by putting the DLC together with it. Wildcard had this to say, clarifying even further in a recent blog post:
“We weren’t trying to mislead you with earlier comments; our plans and overall intentions changed. Frankly, it would not be viable. Many of the changes we’re making in Ark: Survival Ascended will touch a lot of aspects of the game; it’ll invalidate save data, some mods may not be functional, some things may not play the same way as they did before, and we didn’t want to change that experience for those who prefer it or are unable to upgrade.”
Do you think Ark can still truck on? Or is it time to evolve past the game?