Ark: Survival Ascended Is a Hit on Steam, but Performance Complaints Dampen Launch

ign.com:

The hotly anticipated Ark: Survival Ascended released on PC overnight and quickly shot to the top of Steam's best-selling games list, but players are running into performance issues that have marred the launch.

Ark: Survival Ascended is Studio Wildcard’s Unreal Engine 5 remake of the original dinosaur-filled survival game Ark: Survival Evolved. It’s out now on Steam alongside the original game. On Valve’s platform, both Survival Ascended and Survival Evolved are in Steam’s top 100 played games by concurrent players, with Survival Ascended in particular climbing rapidly.

But the remake currently has a ‘mixed’ user review rating of 42%, with most of the negative reviews complaining about performance issues. One Steam review read: “Have a decent computer that can run all top graphic games on high settings. Games like Cyberpunk, Red Dead Redemption 2, and more. Literally cannot run the game without multiple crashes, stutters, and fps issues on the lowest graphical settings. We shouldn't be allowing game studios to release games to the public like this, especially not a remaster. Who puts out a remaster that doesn't run correctly? Isn't that the point of a remaster, for it to run better and look better? Awful product.”

Here are the Ark: Survival Ascended PC system requirements (of note, the game requires an SSD):

MINIMUM:

RECOMMENDED:

While Ark: Survival Ascended is out now on PC, its console launch is delayed to November. Studio Wildcard said it encountered “some critical issues” in the multiplayer version of the game that would have had “major implications” for the console versions of the game, so it delayed the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S launch to next month.

“We understand that this news is disappointing, and