Ark: Survival Ascended's Xbox Series X/S release gets last-minute delay
Ark: Survival Ascended — Studio Wildcard's controversial Unreal Engine 5 spruce-up of its dinosaur-themed survival game — will no longer launch for Xbox Series X/S on 15th November as originally announced, with the developer now hoping to release the game «later this week».
Ark: Survival Ascended is no stranger to delays, of course; the full-price upgrade — which is mandatory for players wishing to continue using Wildcard's official servers — was originally due to launch in August but was delayed to October after Wildcard admitted it «found it challenging working with Unreal Engine 5.2».
October did eventually see the release of Ark: Survival Ascended on PC (albeit with a heap of performance problems), but its arrival was accompanied by a further delay for Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, with both versions being pushed back to an unspecified point in «November». Wildcard finally slapped the Xbox version with a 15th November release date last week (the PS5 edition remains TBA), but that's now slipped again too.
«Xbox and Windows Survivors,» the developer wrote in a statement shared on social media, «the game is still going through the certification process and will not be releasing on Tuesday.» Wildcard added that it's expecting the Xbox Series X/S version to release «later this week», but says it'll share a «more precise time when we have it.»
Ark: Survival Ascended players are also still awaiting release date news for the game's upgraded Scorched Earth desert map. It was originally due to launch simultaneously with the base game, but Wildcard pushed its release into December as part of its August delay. Remastered versions of Ark's Ragnarok and Aberration maps are now coming in «Q1 2024».
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