In late October, developer Studio Wildcard launched Ark: Survival Ascended for the PC via Steam. This was an Unreal Engine 5 remake of the developer’s successful dinosaur-filled survival game Ark: Survival Evolved. Originally, the plan was to also release the new game at the same time for Microsoft Xbox Series X|S consoles, along with Sony’s PlayStation 5 console. However, delays in development and certification kept that from happening.
Now, Studio Wildcard has confirmed via an X (formerly Twitter) post that the Xbox Series X|S console versions of Ark: Survival Ascended will finally launch later today, November 21, starting at 9 am Pacific time (noon Eastern time).
— ARK: Survival Ascended (@survivetheark) November 20, 2023
The developer also said that the new official servers for the game won’t go online until a few hours after the Xbox version launches, to “ensure everyone has a fair chance to join the game”. Also, those servers will have some bonus rates for a limited time to allow Xbox players to catch up with their PC gaming counterparts.
Unfortunately for PS5 players, they will have to wait at least a couple of weeks later to play the game. Studio Wildcard says they have “encountered some issues which will require additional time”. The new plan is to target a release date in early December for the PS5 version.
Here’s a quick summary of what players can expect from the remake of the game in terms of visuals.
ARK: Survival Ascended has completely recreated and redesigned the artwork and worlds of ARK to take advantage of the latest in videogame technology, Unreal Engine 5, using high-end graphics features such as fully dynamic Global Illumination (“Lumen”), so that light bounces realistically of off surfaces and provides realistic reflections, and advanced mesh streaming (“Nanite”) of hundreds of millions of triangles for extreme detail.
Currently, Ark: Survival Ascended is one of the top 25 games played on Steam with around 22,000 concurrent players on average.