Ark: Survival Ascended release delayed and will feature reduced content

thesixthaxis.com:

Ark: Survival Ascended, the Unreal Engine 5 remake of Ark: Survival Evolved, has been delayed, with Studio Wildcard now planned to release the game across Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC in October 2023. Not only that, but the game will feature less content than was previously planned, with a lower launch price to compensate.

Studio Wildcard state that this is down to the challenges of working with Unreal Engine 5.2, working with a fully cross-platform and moddable game across consoles and PC. The planned release dates for The Island and Scorched Earth have been separated, with the latter now coming along in December, while Ragnarok and Aberration will follow in Q1 2024. The full game and content from Ark: Survival Evolved will have made the transition by the end of 2024.

Because of all of this, Ark: Survival Ascended will now be launching with an Early Access price of $45, and a launch discount down to $40. That’s a decent reduction from the planned $60 price tag.

This also affects the planned shutdown of the Official Network servers for Survival Evolved, pushing it back by a month to 30th September. Frustratingly for fans who want to carry custom servers across to the revamped game, they will have to wait until Scorched Earth is re-released in December before that is possible.

While it’s a relatively short delay, this probably won’t help the general disposition of the Ark community, compounding Studio Wildcard’s change of plans made earlier this year around this remake and the sequel Ark 2. Back in March, Ark 2’s delay – and let’s be honest, ‘late 2024’ seems pretty doubtful now – led Studio Wildcard to announce Survival Ascended as an Unreal Engine 5.x remake of the dinosaur-filled hit. However, a bundle with the