ARK: Survival Ascended
ARK: Survival Ascended Review
ARK: Survival Ascended is a visually enhanced remake of the original ARK: Survival Evolved, built on Unreal Engine 5, promising improved graphics and new content. However, despite the graphical upgrade, players report severe performance issues including frequent crashes, microstuttering, and poor optimization even on high-end PCs. The game retains many of the original bugs and exploits, such as meshing and hacking, frustrating the community.
Monetization practices have drawn significant criticism, with many players labeling it a cash grab due to expensive paid DLCs, mod marketplace charges, and forced use of costly Nitrado servers. Official servers are often unstable, and many recommend unofficial servers for better gameplay. The UI and inventory management are described as clunky and unintuitive, further detracting from the experience. Despite these issues, the core gameplay and diversity of maps and creatures still attract dedicated fans, though many advise waiting for major fixes before investing. Overall, the game struggles with balancing ambition and execution.
Highlights
Players praise the impressive graphics upgrade powered by Unreal Engine 5, noting the game's beautiful environments and detailed creature designs. The diversity of maps and creatures offers unique survival experiences, and the sound design is well-received. The core gameplay mechanics of taming, base-building, and exploration remain engaging for fans of the series. The inclusion of all original maps and new content like Bob's Tall Tales adds depth. Many enjoy the game more with mods, enhancing replayability.
For those who overcome technical hurdles, the game provides a rich survival experience with potential for growth as development continues.
Criticisms
The most common criticisms focus on poor optimization and stability, with frequent crashes, stuttering, and low FPS reported even on powerful hardware. Players highlight persistent bugs and exploits unchanged from the original, including base meshing and hacking, severely impacting PvP. The UI and inventory systems are described as confusing and cumbersome.
Monetization is heavily criticized as aggressive and exploitative, with expensive paid DLCs, mod marketplace fees, and server hosting restrictions frustrating the community. Official servers are often laggy or unstable, and forced use of premium hosting limits player choice. Many feel the game is a cash grab with little focus on quality or fixing foundational problems.
Pros
- • Stunning graphics powered by Unreal Engine 5 provide immersive environments and detailed creatures.
- • Wide variety of maps and diverse dinosaurs offer unique survival gameplay experiences.
- • Sound design is atmospheric and enhances the immersive survival experience.
- • Core gameplay mechanics of taming, building, and exploring remain engaging and deep.
- • Includes all original maps plus new content like Bob's Tall Tales expansion.
- • Mod support adds replayability and customization for players who enjoy modded content.
- • Single-player mode is enjoyable despite multiplayer issues, suitable for solo players.
Cons
- • Severe performance issues including frequent crashes and microstuttering on high-end PCs.
- • Persistent bugs and exploits like meshing and hacking ruin PvP balance and fairness.
- • UI and inventory system are clunky, unintuitive, and frustrating to navigate.
- • Aggressive monetization with expensive DLCs and paid mod marketplace frustrate players.
- • Forced use of costly Nitrado servers limits player freedom and server choice.
- • Official servers are unstable, laggy, and often unplayable for many users.
- • Game feels like a cash grab with little effort to fix foundational bugs or optimize.
Rating Criteria
About This Game
Respawn into a new dinosaur survival experience beyond your wildest dreams… as ARK is reimagined from the ground-up into the next-generation of videogame technology with Unreal Engine 5! You awake on a mysterious island, your senses overwhelmed by the blinding sunlight and brilliant colors bouncing off every surface around you, the azure waters of a verdant Island lapping at your bare feet. A deep roar echoes from the misty jungle, jolting you into action, and you stand up – not afraid, but intrigued. Are you ready to form a tribe, tame and breed hundreds of species of dinosaurs and other primeval creatures, explore, craft, build, and fight your way to the top of the food-chain? Your new world awaits… step through the looking-glass and join it!
FEATURES
ARK: Survival Ascended has completely recreated and redesigned the artwork and worlds of ARK to take advantage of the latest in videogame technology, Unreal Engine 5, using high-end graphics features such as fully dynamic Global Illumination (“Lumen”), so that light bounces realistically off of surfaces and provides realistic reflections, and advanced mesh streaming (“Nanite”) of hundreds of millions of triangles for extreme detail.
Advanced new physics systems such as dynamic water so that every creature creates waves, ripples, splashes, and bubbles as they move through fluids, and fully interactive physical foliage where every blade of grass, bush, and tree reacts to characters, explosions, projectiles, and physics objects. Knock down a tree, and see it crash into other trees and disturb all the foliage on its way down to smacking into the grass below! Detect an enemy moving sneakily through the grass as it shifts and sways in response to their presence. Demolish a building and watch the pieces break apart realistically, interacting with the grass and water as they fall.
ARK: Survival Ascended includes access to all of ARK’s worlds, including Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, ARK Genesis Part 1, ARK Genesis Part 2, and more. The Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration and The Center are released now, Extinction will be released on December 16, with the subsequent expansion worlds to be added at no additional cost on a regular basis.
The definitive survival experience returns better than ever: design your Survivor, form a tribe, and tame, train, breed & ride dinosaurs within a living ecosystem. Watch your food, water, temperature, and weather patterns. Slowly expand outwards as you harvest, build structures, farm crops, customize your visual designs, and proceed to explore to uncover the true nature of The Island and the worlds beyond.
Thorough Quality of Life revamps in every area: redesigned User Interfaces, dynamic navigation for intelligent creature pathfinding, Wild Babies, Photo Mode, new Camera systems, new Map system, Tracking System, new Structures and Items, new Creatures, and much more.
Cross-Platform Modding: Download & play new custom content created by players, including new maps, creatures, items, and game modes, through a dedicated mod collection directly within the game! Enjoy an endless stream of new ARK content as the creativity and talent of the community is fully unleashed for the first time ever across gaming platforms!
Cross-Platform Multiplayer: form your online tribe across different gaming platforms as you work together to survive and thrive on the ARK!
Supports public online multiplayer for up to 70 players, private-session multiplayer for up to 8 players, and local split-screen for 2 players.
ARK is reimagined from the ground-up into the next-generation of video game technology with Unreal Engine 5! Form a tribe, tame & breed hundreds of unique dinosaurs and primeval creatures, explore, craft, build, and fight your way to the top of the food-chain. Your new world awaits!