ARK Survival Evolvedis getting a remaster on Unreal Engine 5 later this year, but fans are expressing their frustration with the pricing and contents of the bundle by review bombing the original title.
RELATED:Ark: Survival Evolved Is Receiving A Remaster, But It Won’t Be Free For Existing Owners
Earlier this week, Studio Wildcard announced that ARK 2 had been delayed to the end of 2024, to ensure that the game can “provide a truly exceptional and rewarding experience for players.” Along with that, the developers also revealed that they are working on a remaster of the game, titled ARK: Survival Ascended, which will be built on Unreal Engine 5 and released this August.
The remaster, along with ARK 2, can be bought as part of the ARK Respawned bundle for $49.99 on Xbox consoles. Additionally, PlayStation 5 users can get the game as a standalone purchase for $39.99 at launch.
The announcement didn’t go down well in the community, as fans are quite disappointed over the fact that a remaster of the game will be costing full price, and there are no DLCs included as part of the bundle as well. This means players will need to buy the DLCs all over again if they want to play it on ARK: Survival Ascended. As a result, the game is getting review bombed on Steam, with an influx of negative reviews after the announcement.
That’s not all, all ARK: Survival Evolved servers will be closed after the launch of ARK: Survival Ascended and players will only be to play on single-player, non-dedicated, player-dedicated, and unofficial servers. To make things even worse, the remaster was initially planned to be free, but the developers seemed to have backtracked on their announcement.
Co-founder of Studio Wildcard Jeremy Stieglitzannounced in Januarythat ARK: Survival Evolved will be getting a free upgrade to Unreal Engine 5. However, the tweet was later on deleted, and now the existing version of the game is going to be absolutely obsolete after the launch of ARK: Survival Ascended. Moreover, if the cost of DLCs is also included, then players might need to pay as much as $90 to get both the Explorer’s Pass and Genesis Pass.
It remains to be seen if Studio Wildcard responds to the backlash, otherwise, it would mean that players would need to pay once again for the same game, with some extra bells and whistles.
