Ark: Survival Evolved devs respond to backlash over $50 remaster: now it costs $60 and comes with DLC instead of Ark 2
After considerable backlash to its plans of selling a major Ark: Survival Evolved update that was previously set to be free, developer Studio Wildcard has responded by making the pricey upgrade slightly pricier.
Ark is upgrading to Unreal Engine 5, and the developers said in the past that this update would be a free one (opens in new tab). Last week, they announced that this upgrade would actually come in the form of Ark: Survival Ascended, a full-on remaster that would only be available to Xbox and PC players as part of a $49.99 USD bundle that also comes with the upcoming sequel Ark 2.
On top of that, the DLC would be sold separately, so even if you owned all the original Ark content, you'd need to spend upwards of $90 to get everything under this formerly "free" update. The response was not particularly kind.
The devs have now backed off that initial plan, and Ark: Survival Ascended will now cost $59.99 USD. While the bundle no longer includes Ark 2, it does include all the DLC at the same price the current version costs with all the extras. Beyond the visual upgrades, the new version is set to overhaul creature pathfinding, provide quality-of-life upgrades to dinosaur and baby management, and introduce cross-platform multiplayer.
At this point, the review bomb has calmed down and the game's Steam page features a pretty even mix of positive and negative user reviews. You'll still see a whole lot (opens in new tab) of very negative responses (opens in new tab) in the comments on the announcement, but there are certainly some members of the community who are taking a more optimistic stance (opens in new tab).
It's not uncommon to see a $60 price tag for a full-on remaster of a video game, but it is unusual to see an
Read more on gamesradar.com
