Early Access Review
First off yes I'm absolutely biased towards this game and this franchise. Because I such a huge fan of Dinosaurs since I was a kid. ARK : Survival Evolved(ASE) was also the reason why I got into PC Gaming and why I bought my first PC. I'm a big fan of survival games and yes I really do have 3288 h in ARK : Survival Evolved across multiple platforms. But I agree, the orginal game has many bugs and performance issues but I just love taming Dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. The building mechanics were also really great.
When it comes to this Remaster/Remake Ark: Survival Ascended(ASA) I can say one thing for certain and which is that Wildcard ( Devs) improved this game already a lot with so many QoL features like the new building system, the improved map, the way they implemented mods and made them available on console too which is sick. I really love the new building mechanics, they are a fantastic improvement upon the previous mechanics from ASE. On top of that you have the new beautiful graphic with all these stunning UE5 features and like dynamic lightning, improved water physics and much more. However, this comes with a trade-off which is the performance. You really need a high-end PC to run this game anywhere near 60 FPS. I have a pretty good PC(RTX 4070, I7 16 GB RAM all that shit) and "only" get around 30-40 FPS with Graphics settings on High. With the use of Nvidia DSSL 3 and frame generation I can improve my FPS up to 60-70 FPS.
There are still a ton of technical problems, bugs like the Dino Spawn problem in Single Player and the crashes which happen too frequent for my taste. The other big problems is the current unofficial server situation. To explaine it short, the CEO from Snail Games(The publisher and owner from Wildcard) wasted all of the money which they earned through ASE for a stupid electric car idea because he thought he is Elon Musk. Now he and Snail Games are broke and need money which is why he sold the rights to rent unoffical servers to Nitrado. Because of that contract they forced Wildcard to release ASA early than they(Wildcard) wanted. Now we have a monopoly where only one server provider exist and we have to deal with every disadvantage that such a monopoly brings with it. There are soo many reason why you should hate the publisher Snail Games and it is such a shame that they bought Wildcard. I don't want to delve into the topic now but if you want to know more about the whole situation just watch some youtube videos. I think it's important to keep this whole situation in mind while rating this game.
You can clearly see the love that Wildcard has for their games and that they genuinely care about their community. They really want to create the best game possible but are clearly held back by their greedy publisher called Snail Games. Overall a great improvement upon the original game with tons of new QoL features but also room for improvement, especially on the performaces side. I also really hope that Wildcard can free themself from Snail Games shackles and I'm excited to see what the future holds for this game even if I'm still a bit concerned.
Also, I hate you Snail Games!!!
First off yes I'm absolutely biased towards this game and this franchise. Because I such a huge fan of Dinosaurs since I was a kid. ARK : Survival Evolved(ASE) was also the reason why I got into PC Gaming and why I bought my first PC. I'm a big fan of survival games and yes I really do have 3288 h in ARK : Survival Evolved across multiple platforms. But I agree, the orginal game has many bugs and performance issues but I just love taming Dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. The building mechanics were also really great.
When it comes to this Remaster/Remake Ark: Survival Ascended(ASA) I can say one thing for certain and which is that Wildcard ( Devs) improved this game already a lot with so many QoL features like the new building system, the improved map, the way they implemented mods and made them available on console too which is sick. I really love the new building mechanics, they are a fantastic improvement upon the previous mechanics from ASE. On top of that you have the new beautiful graphic with all these stunning UE5 features and like dynamic lightning, improved water physics and much more. However, this comes with a trade-off which is the performance. You really need a high-end PC to run this game anywhere near 60 FPS. I have a pretty good PC(RTX 4070, I7 16 GB RAM all that shit) and "only" get around 30-40 FPS with Graphics settings on High. With the use of Nvidia DSSL 3 and frame generation I can improve my FPS up to 60-70 FPS.
There are still a ton of technical problems, bugs like the Dino Spawn problem in Single Player and the crashes which happen too frequent for my taste. The other big problems is the current unofficial server situation. To explaine it short, the CEO from Snail Games(The publisher and owner from Wildcard) wasted all of the money which they earned through ASE for a stupid electric car idea because he thought he is Elon Musk. Now he and Snail Games are broke and need money which is why he sold the rights to rent unoffical servers to Nitrado. Because of that contract they forced Wildcard to release ASA early than they(Wildcard) wanted. Now we have a monopoly where only one server provider exist and we have to deal with every disadvantage that such a monopoly brings with it. There are soo many reason why you should hate the publisher Snail Games and it is such a shame that they bought Wildcard. I don't want to delve into the topic now but if you want to know more about the whole situation just watch some youtube videos. I think it's important to keep this whole situation in mind while rating this game.
You can clearly see the love that Wildcard has for their games and that they genuinely care about their community. They really want to create the best game possible but are clearly held back by their greedy publisher called Snail Games. Overall a great improvement upon the original game with tons of new QoL features but also room for improvement, especially on the performaces side. I also really hope that Wildcard can free themself from Snail Games shackles and I'm excited to see what the future holds for this game even if I'm still a bit concerned.
Also, I hate you Snail Games!!!