Ark Survival Ascended has made its debut, but it’s encountered a turbulent start in its transition to Unreal Engine 5 as it remasters the popular dinosaur survival game. The launch has been marred by various issues, such as performance problems affecting even high-end PC users, server locks, and frequent reports of game crashes. As a result, the Steam reviews for Ark Survival Ascended currently sit at a mediocre 50%, with more than 13,500 reviews, giving it a ‘mixed’ rating. Meanwhile, the original Ark Survival Evolved appears to be maintaining a strong player base, with numbers similar to the new game’s player count.
Released on October 26, 2023, Ark Survival Ascended was developed by Studio Wildcard as an opportunity to experiment with Unreal Engine 5 and familiarize themselves with the technology. Their goal was to test some of their more ambitious technical innovations in this UE5 rework of one of the best multiplayer survival games before moving forward with the development of the highly anticipated Ark 2.
However, the game is currently struggling to find its footing. A user named ‘Chaos’ in a top Steam review expressed, “I wish I could recommend this game, but I cannot right now,” mentioning that their year-old computer is struggling to run the game even at the lowest settings. Another reviewer, ‘Pank,’ stated that the game “barely works, crashes every ten seconds, and runs at 10fps.” Some players have sarcastically referred to it as a “$40 texture pack” or observed that servers are frequently taken offline for fixes, making it challenging to play.
Studio Wildcard has been actively delivering updates, including a client-side update with “improved settings assignments for each graphics quality mode.” They have been collecting data to identify major server performance issues and plan to introduce a PTR (Public Test Realm) branch to test some of their more daring optimizations before implementing them for the public.
The development team has recently launched additional official servers for PvP, PvE, and SmallTribes in the European and North American regions. However, they are still investigating startup crashes on certain servers and a server locking issue that requires manual intervention to recover. They are working to resolve these issues as soon as possible.
Despite its issues, Ark Survival Ascended has seen a respectable player count on Steam, peaking at 85,294 players on Saturday, October 28, making it the fifteenth highest 24-hour peak on Steam. This peak player count surpassed titles like Battlefield 2042, Cyberpunk 2077, and Cities Skylines 2 according to SteamDB. Nevertheless, many players seem to be sticking with the original game, Ark Survival Evolved, which also peaked at 75,245 players on the same Saturday.
Interestingly, despite a slight dip in player numbers during the initial launch of Survival Ascended, the original game has maintained a comparable player count to what it had before the new UE5 version was released. The higher player numbers for Ascended indicate that players are giving the remastered version a chance, but only time will reveal if it can retain its audience.
If you are considering trying out Ark Survival Ascended, it’s advisable to review the system requirements first, particularly in light of the reported performance issues. Additionally, we have explored its compatibility with the Steam Deck and provided guidance on the best settings to optimize performance when playing on Valve’s handheld device.