ARK: Survival Ascended Reviews

Ark Survival Ascended felt a waste of time... and money i cant belief that wildcard peferd to make a remakefor ark survival evolved then rather fully work on ARK 2. Game is not optimized. Alot of shit wont load in its just aflop Ark Survival evolved is even better.. I apricate the modders there then here cause of the mods are behind a paywall... I respect the modders but this is crazy for me. I have lost faith in the next ark game. hope that the devs can realise why this game is getting bad reviewd

Paid this much money for a bad update. Extremely buggy, Wildcard is making too many promises they just cant keep.

Why You Shouldn't Play ARK: Ascended? ARK: Ascended, the remastered version of the popular game ARK: Survival Evolved, promises improved graphics, better performance, and updated mechanics. Unfortunately, reality often does not match these expectations, making it worth reconsidering before diving into this adventure. Here are some key reasons why ARK: Ascended may not be the best choice for gaming. 1. Poor Optimization and High System RequirementsARK: Ascended demands an extremely powerful computer, as the game is not well-optimized. Even players with high-end graphics cards and processors often report issues such as frame rate drops, stuttering, and long loading times. If you don’t have a powerful system, playing will be nearly impossible or at least very frustrating. 2. Frequent Bugs and GlitchesDespite being a remastered release, the game still suffers from numerous bugs. From sudden crashes to data loss – these issues can ruin the entire experience. Developers do release patches regularly, but it seems new problems always arise, making gameplay difficult. 3. Overpriced CostARK: Ascended is a paid upgrade of a game that was previously available. This means that existing players have to pay a significant amount again for content they ideally should have received as a free update. Additionally, the inclusion of DLCs adds even more financial burden on players. 4. Poor Developer SupportStudio Wildcard, the game’s developer, has repeatedly shown inadequate community support. They often ignore player feedback, delay promised updates, and fail to address major issues. This reduces trust in the long-term quality of the game. 5. Outdated and Repetitive GameplayAlthough ARK: Ascended offers visual improvements, the gameplay remains almost the same as in the previous version. Veteran players may quickly get bored since they have already experienced the main content, while new players may not notice significant enhancements that justify the high price. ConclusionARK: Ascended could be an excellent game if developers focused more on optimization, stability, and fairness towards players. However, at the moment, the game is overpriced, full of issues, and plagued by poor developer decisions. If you’re not ready to invest a lot of time, money, and patience, it might be better to look for another game.

This is one of the best games I've played. Very in depth games with a tremendous amount to learn! The PVP is brutal but makes it that much more rewarding when you finally get established. Now my 1 and only issue is the crashing, me and my 2 other friends that play crash around 3x per night now, no update has fixed this in the 500 hours we've put in each, all 3 of us are playing on pc's from medium to high end builds it does'nt seem to make a difference, please fix this!

7.5/10 A few years back my brother bought me ARK. The confusion of playing it lead me to not like it at first, but eventually I tried it again a few months later and I fell in love with the game. It's by no means perfect, but you can literally spend hours building your base and exploring and just relaxing in the game. I ended up putting in over 500 hrs into the game. I bought Ark Ascended on sale to experience the journey again, and see what few meaningful changes were implemented. I also setup my own server and have invited a handful of my friends to join me. It's a super fun game even though it's not optimised and might run like garbage unless you have a really good system (unless you want to play on med low settings). For $33 on sale I'm positive I'll get my money's worth!

This game would be amazing if it worked. The devs are too focused on pushing out new paid content while glaring problems make the game virtually unplayable. The graphics are great, but made terrible due to overdone lighting and fog. Many of the improvements over Ark: Survival Evolved have been walked back due to laziness in map development (i.e. ground clutter clipping through foundations, etc). UE5 has been used to try to cover up sloppy development causing massive ghosting, tearing, and other typical issues of lazy UE5 development. Crashes are not only still commonplace, but becoming more common over time as more issues are being introduced with new content and older issues are continually ignored. I understand that Wildcard/Snail promised all the old maps and are striving to get them out as quickly as possible, but every day the game remains in this nightmarish state, they are losing players that are unlikely to return. Their approach of getting the content out first and then fixing the game is killing it. While Ark: Survival Evolved had many issues as well, players still were able to enjoy the game while they waited for more content, and did exactly that. The current approach to Ark: Survival Ascended of "we'll fix the game once it's all out" is driving off players in droves. I, for one, didn't buy the game to play it in 3 years. I bought the game to enjoy the existing content, knowing that more was on the way eventually. Their latest cash grab ploy was to take the most played (and playable) mod map "Astraeos," which was announced as a free map that would later also have a separate premium (paid) version, and made it into a DLC while removing the free version, requiring players to pay an additional $15 to continue to play on it. Ark: Survival Ascended is an insult to players and fans, and frankly a massive disappointment by Wildcard, Snail, and even Steam for allowing this kind of treatment on their platform. UPDATE 2/26/2025: The free mod of Astraeos was made to work again, allowing players to continue to play on that version rather than pay an additional $15 for the premium version.

Good game. Too many updates and not enough patch notes. For example. Today(Feb 6th 2025) there were 2 updates in a single day. No patch notes to speak of except for january 31'st 2025. why are we not being informed of what we need to know. Why when im in the middle of the game am i crashing and having to wait 15 min to patch 190gb of SSD for 600mb of DL? where is the advance notice. These guys need to get their shit together. Other than that its fun. enjoy.

cannot play this game for more then 5 minutes now without crashing. updated ram and everything and still cant play

Wildcard can't seem to keep the game running. Giant patches that require 2x the game space to unpack. Every major patch breaks something that takes weeks, maybe months to fix. Wildcard is very quiet about their mistakes, very vocal about the premium mods.

Every time this game updates, it takes more than 2 hours because apparently it has to update EVERY FILE IN THE GAME instead of just what has been updated. The least optimized game in the history of time. Garbage devs producing not just garbage... but REPEAT garbage that just looks prettier. All the same bugs are there, all the same issues, all the same lack of response or interest from the devs. Lets introduce 132 new dinos and creatures into our basically busted and buggy game... and of course lets charge for as much as we can on this REPEAT game that we refuse to actually fix anything on. Bad devs. Bad game. and I am a dumb idiot for purchasing it and believing they would do better. Avoid and find a better dev to support.