"It has taken a few years, but ARK: Survival Ascended is finally on the verge of becoming a better game than ARK: Survival Evolved, and as someone who has been a fan of ARK: Survival Evolved since day one, I could not be happier about it."
I waited much longer than normal to review ARK: Survival Ascended, as frankly I felt that in an ideal world, one in which the developers were not forced to launch or essentially doom themselves via costly “late penalties” to investors who pulled them back from the verge of bankruptcy, the game would not only have launched several months later, but would have launched in a much better state.
While I am not saying those who reviewed it early did anything wrong, ARK: Survival Ascended was severely undercooked at launch, and while it showed loads of promise, it was clearly not ready for release in any form, with performance issues that made running the game well on almost every hardware configuration difficult.
Almost two and a half years later, while not all of the content from ARK: Survival Evolved has been ported over, I am beginning to see a future in which ARK: Survival Ascended becomes the definitive way to play Ark. Assuming the developers can keep to the current roadmap, it has the potential to become something much greater, something we have already seen glimpses of thanks to its new DLC pass system, which ensures ongoing funding for the game, something ARK: Survival Evolved lacked for the vast majority of its lifespan.
While some are unhappy that ARK: Survival Ascended sells premium mods and DLC, the fact Studio Wildcard could barely afford to keep the lights on after ARK: Survival Evolved remained extremely popular many years after base game sales no longer sustained server costs, let alone ongoing development, should be reason enough to convince all but the most ardent anti-microtransaction fanatics of the need for such systems, especially when they are optional and help to support ongoing development of free features and maps.
These are funded by the sale of paid DLC, allowing all players, even those who do not support the game with purchases, to reap the benefits of a much more sustainable business model, one which simply would not have been possible based on base game sales alone.
With that out of the way, let us get on with the review.
Now more than ever, players have grown accustomed to being able to play with their friends regardless of platform. In fact, it has reached the point where games without crossplay are a rarity, as not only does it frustrate players, it is worse for developers, resulting in multiple smaller fractured communities that cause games to die far earlier than they should.
The reverse is often true for crossplay-supported games, where even less popular titles remain active far longer thanks to the strength and matchmaking stability provided by a shared player pool.
This has resulted in even essentially dead games such as Realm Royale surviving for almost seven years, despite having a very small community and virtually no updates for many of those years. While Realm Royale was eventually sunset, without crossplay it would likely have struggled to make it past year two, let alone survive until its seventh anniversary and briefly re-enter development.
That said, as of January 2026, ARK: Survival Ascended does not support cross-buy or cross-progression, meaning players who play on multiple platforms cannot use the same character across each, and premium mods and DLC must be purchased separately. This frankly feels archaic in 2026, when many titles allow players to access their purchases and retain their progression regardless of platform.
While some diehard Steam fanatics mourn the loss of Steam as the official mod repository for ARK: Survival Ascended, migrating to a cross-platform mod store with support for monetisation is a fantastic way to reward creators, fund ongoing development, and most importantly allow console players to not only enjoy mods previously available only on PC, but also join modded servers.
This was something that was entirely impossible previously, despite Xbox console users and Xbox PC App users being able to play together on the same servers, provided those servers were unmodded.
I am a huge fan of the way Studio Wildcard is handling DLC for ARK: Survival Ascended, with all original maps remaining free, and only new maps requiring an additional purchase.
In addition to funding development of new features for older maps, the developers have begun releasing thematic packs of cosmetic and functional items for each of the original four DLC maps in the form of Bob’s Tales. These grant players access to new vehicles such as buggies and airships, alongside a wide selection of cosmetic and functional items.
For the most part, these additions are well balanced and do not introduce a pay-to-win element into the game.
That said, the ability to resurrect tames is rather problematic and really should have been a free feature rather than one locked behind paid DLC. Thankfully, this mistake was largely confined to the DLC accompanying Scorched Earth, and most items released since have avoided offering similar advantages.
Another benefit of Studio Wildcard’s new approach to monetisation is that it gives the developers more freedom to be creative with new maps, and we are already starting to see that with the Lost Colony DLC, which allows players to explore Arat Prime, the site of a crashed Ark on the far side of a post-extinction Earth.
As part of the Lost Colony DLC, players explore Arat Prime, a harsh and unforgiving map inhabited by zombie-like creatures and mutated dinosaurs. One of the main new features introduced with this map is the ability to attack and defend various outposts, as well as recruit and control thralls (NPCs), greatly increasing PvE replayability and incorporating a hint of zombie survival and Conan Exiles-style mechanics into ARK: Survival Ascended.
The fun also looks set to continue, with the 2026-2027 roadmap including a variety of new maps, such as a sailing-themed Ark featuring player-built boats (welcome back, Atlas ↪), a dragon-themed DLC, and even a space-themed expansion featuring starfighters, bombers, capital ships, and colonisable planetoids.
Without question, ARK: Survival Ascended is a much better-looking game than ARK: Survival Evolved. While ARK: Survival Evolved has aged reasonably gracefully in places, some models and textures are clearly showing their age, and mechanically it faces limitations that simply do not exist on more modern engines.
While ARK: Survival Ascended initially suffered from severe performance issues, much of the perceived poor performance came from players attempting to run a modern game at the same settings they used for ARK: Survival Evolved, a title that by that point was eight years old and capable of running on 2013 hardware such as Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
As of 2026, ARK: Survival Ascended is far more stable, and with an engine upgrade planned for 2026 that is expected to improve performance by up to 40%, I believe the game is approaching a point where it not only looks better than ARK: Survival Evolved, but performs better as well in nearly every conceivable way.
ARK: Survival Ascended is a survival game developed and published by Studio Wildcard, it released on 26 October 2023, and is available on PC, Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
ARK: Survival Ascended supports:
ARK: Survival Ascended offers the following matchmaking options:
ARK: Survival Ascended supports the following peripherals:
ARK: Survival Ascended is rated PEGI 16+ and contains:
ARK: Survival Ascended is a fantastic game, and while some object to it on principle, I feel more than enough time had passed since the release of ARK: Survival Evolved to justify a remaster, especially in light of the developers’ financial troubles and the complete lack of a viable business model capable of supporting the massive ongoing costs associated with a game that was still seeing over one million monthly users eight years after release.
Ultimately, I fully recommend ARK: Survival Ascended, and for those looking for a great server cluster to spend time on, I personally play on the Medusa cluster and have done so since shortly after launch. I cannot recommend it enough.
Check out the Medusa Discord Server ↪ for more information.
Disclaimer: We have no affiliation with the Medusa community beyond playing on the server cluster, and our views and those of the server owners may or may not necessarily align on all issues and topics.
We found ARK: Survival Ascended to be a great game, meaning it delivers a memorable experience with only minor imperfections that don't detract from the overall enjoyment of the game.
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