According to Wildcard's roadmap, the ARK 1 remake ARK: Survival Ascended (ASA) is now scheduled for release in October. The official ARK 1 servers are already offline, but there is still no trace of ASA. We have investigated.
Here's the deal: The anticipated remake of the popular survival game ARK: Survival Evolved, dubbed ARK: Survival Ascended (ASA), was initially slated for release in August 2023. Wildcard, the developer, meticulously reconstructed ASA using Unreal Engine 5. This revamp is not merely aesthetic; it aims to eradicate prevailing performance issues and bugs, and will also usher in mod support for console enthusiasts. However, according to a roadmap unveiled in July, the launch has been postponed to October 2023. But details regarding its release remain elusive.
Update from October 23: Xbox announced today that the first ARK: Survival Ascended trailer will take place on October 25 during the Xbox Showcase at 10am PT.
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The conjecture surrounding ASA’s October 2023 release is met with skepticism among fans on official Discord channels and various social media platforms. This uncertainty is fuelled by the absence of actual screenshots or gameplay trailers, with only concepts available thus far. Moreover, a dedicated Steam page and an official release date are conspicuously missing, casting shadows of doubt on Wildcard’s forthcoming plans.
Conversations within the official Discord maintain the prospect of an October release, with the product manager, Dollie, also sharing insights on this topic:
"so like, just between us and not the other 1978777586k people here, I feel like that roadmap is good for now in that regard and if we get really specific about dates this far out we set ourselves up for.....like....we kinda suck at ETA's so...."
Dollie means the July roadmap that states the official ARK 1 servers would go offline on September 30, and ARK: Survival Ascended (ASA) would come out in October. The servers are indeed offline now, but there’s still no sign of the promised ASA trailer or release date. Dollie also mentioned they’re not great with ETA's, and that’s true. Wildcard has a history full of missed release dates and delays.
Wildcard seems to want to stick to the October release. Players who can’t play on the official servers anymore are definitely putting pressure on the developers. The devs kinda set a deadline for themselves that they can’t easily push back now.
If they want to release ASA in Early Access in October, they better hurry. The official Steam rules say that a game’s page, including a trailer, has to be up at least two weeks before the release. That’s what Valve says:
"Your 'Coming Soon' page must be live for at least two weeks before your product’s release."
It also says:
"As part of the release process on Steam, you need to upload a trailer for your product."
So, Wildcard would have to get the Steam page and a trailer up by October 17 at the latest. Another way would be to fully release the game, skipping the two-week rule, and putting ARK: Survival Ascended online directly. But since it’s supposed to be an Early Access release, and they have to follow the two-week guideline, we can rule that out.
We’ll probably find out what Wildcard decides in one of the next Community Crunches, which always come out on Friday evening.
Update: There is no information about the ASA release in the October 13 Community Crunch.
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