Ark: Survival Evolved remake Survival Ascended is apparently out on PC today - but you can’t play it just yet

rockpapershotgun.com:

Ark: Survival Ascended, the remake of dinosaur survival game Ark: Survival Evolved, has resurfaced with its first gameplay trailer, showing off its flashy Unreal Engine 5 graphics, improved physics-based destruction and overhauled user interface. The biggest reveal, though, is that the Ark remake will apparently drop on Steam later today.

Survival Ascended is a separate game to full sequel Ark 2 - due for release late next year - in that it looks to overhaul the original immensely popular survival sim and its expansions. The remaster has generated plenty of controversy along the way by launching as a standalone $45 game (after being announced with a $60 price tag) while effectively replacing Ark: Survival Evolved, which shut down all of its official servers last month.

Economics aside, it’s hard to deny that Survival Ascended looks to be making the most of its “ground up” rebuild of Survival Evolved, described as “a top-to-bottom remake of the original game” by developers Studio Wildcard in a detailed breakdown of its new tech.

The use of Unreal Engine 5 includes better lighting via the Lumen illumination system, with dynamic lighting and reflections from the game’s water sources, plants and torches held by player characters.

There’s also the new use of Nanite mesh rendering, which basically means that everything from dinosaur skin to rocks and trees looks sharper thanks to a more efficient way of streaming assets to the GPU without having to scale them down using lower-detail versions.

The more efficient mesh rendering of Nanite is joined by instanced-basing rendering for Ark’s player bases, which have been adjusting behind the scenes to reduce the impact on performance when too many structures are placed