In the game survivors wake up stranded, naked, freezing, and starving on a mysterious island where they must hunt, harvest, craft items, grow crops, and build shelters to survive in every biome. Survivors will tame, train, and ride more than 100 stunning dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts, including gargantuan creatures on a scale never before seen in video games! In every available biome -- Jungle, Snow, Swamp, Redwood, and Desert -- you’ll be able to fly an armed Pteranodon squadron over the snow-capped mountains, race through a thick jungle with your pack of trained Raptors, tromp through a fortified enemy base with a convoy of gigantic Brontosaurus, or chase down prey on the back of a raging T-Rex.

Use cunning strategy and tactics to tame and ride the many dinosaurs and other primeval creatures roaming the dynamic, persistent ecosystems across land, sea, air, and even underground. Build your character’s strengths and gain items, skills, and pet creatures using in-depth role-playing systems. Start a tribe with hundreds of other players to survive and dominate competing tribes...and ultimately discover the ARK’s true purpose.

The base game will include The Island, a revamped Survival of the Fittest, and all the “Non-Canon” DLC maps (which will be added over time).

At ARK: Survival Ascended’s launch, players will have access to The Island, Scorched Earth, and the new revamped game mode, Survival of the Fittest.

Survivors,

After much deliberation, we’ve decided to delay the launch of ARK: Survival Ascended to later this year and ship the title on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC in October 2023. 

We’ve found it challenging working with Unreal Engine 5.2, but at the same time, it is incredibly exciting. We’re discovering new ways each day to push the technology to the next level; combined with the work needed to support a fully cross-platform-moddable game ecosystem on consoles and PC, it’s clear that we’ll need a bit more time.

We’ve also decided to separate the release date of The Island and Scorched Earth. With what we’ve learned about remastering The Island from the ground-up, it wouldn’t be feasible to complete Scorched Earth to a standard we’re happy with. So for now, we’re going to plan that Scorched Earth will be coming to ASA in December this year, Ragnarok and Aberration will follow in Q1 2024, and the rest of the maps beyond then.

ARK: Survival Ascended will now be launching at an Early Access price point of $44.99 with a launch-discount bringing it to $39.99.

We had initially planned to ship with more content on Day One, but that won’t be happening, so we’re adjusting the launch price accordingly.

We know you really want to get your hands on ASA, and we appreciate that support and enthusiasm. We’re going to do our best to work hard to make sure that we can deliver a tremendous next-gen ARK experience that meets both your expectations and our own. 

That covers the big news; we know there’s still a fair bit of time between now and the launch, so hang in there; it’ll be worth the wait! In the meantime, here are some answers to questions we’ve seen come up over the last few weeks as well as address some new points.

When will we see gameplay?

We know you’re excited, curious, and skeptical; we understand. Our plan is to show gameplay close to the launch of ASA, as that’ll be when it’s completely ready and best represent the final product, so you’ll have to stay tuned until then.

Is there going to be a change to the date when ARK:SE’s Official Network comes offline?

We’re now planning on shutting down the Official Network on September 30th, given the slight delay in the launch of the game.

When will we be able to access our save files?

We’re currently working with Nitrado to make sure that the save files system works, and we’ll be providing instructions on how you can get them when they’re available. Our intention is to take multiple saves at different times, so you can choose which is most relevant to you.

With Scorched Earth being delayed, will there still be server transfers?

We won’t be supporting Server Transfers at the launch of ARK: Survival Ascended; this feature will become enabled when Scorched Earth releases in December.

How long should we expect the title to be in ‘Early Access’?

ARK: Survival Ascended will leave Early Access in late 2024 once all the content has finished its next-generation remastering.

Are there going to be any changes to the release order of certain content?

Generally, we will keep the canonical maps released in the same order. We may make some adjustments with some of the non-cannon maps and release them sooner, but that honestly depends more on our pipeline, so we’ll announce them accordingly.

Will we be seeing more ASA concepts?

Yep! We intend to keep showing you guys progress on the visual changes between ARK:SE and ASA in the lead-up to the game's launch.

What about creature votes?

They’ll be continuing to run! In fact, the team has been working on the design for the Gigantoraptor from a conceptual point of view, as well as the actual gameplay mechanics, and we can’t wait to show that to you in the weeks ahead!

As always, we're incredibly grateful for your ongoing support and passion for the franchise.

Thank you, Survivors

Studio Wildcard

ARK: Survival Ascended will also feature the following improvements and enhancements:

• Unreal Engine 5 Overhaul with Nanite, Lumen, and RTXDI
• Dynamic Water and Interactive Foliage
• Cross-platform Multiplayer
  • This includes cross-platform accounts and cross-progression, cross-voice chat & friends, etc. No matter what platform ASA is started on, access is available to each account, character, dinos, and items on a different platform.
• Cross-platform Modding
  • Studio Wildcard has chosen to partner with Overwolf, the modding platform leader, to introduce an industry-first cross-platform modding experience where mods created on PC are delivered directly to end-users’ consoles from a custom modding backend.
  • Premium Modding Market: Mod creators will optionally be able to specify price points for their Mods (with 50% of the price point going to the Mod author). All mods will be reviewed by Overwolf and Studio Wildcard for quality control and value. The remainder pays for the custom infrastructure required for Overwolf to support, administrate, and deliver Mods to the console.
• Survival of the Fittest
  • SOTF will be integrated into ASA as a new fully-supported game mode. It will have a dedicated development team that will continue to work on gameplay changes, mechanical improvements, quality of life, maps, and balance adjustments. The mode will be revamped with an exclusive ARK: Survival Ascended update, including:
    • Upgraded to UE5 with complete cross-platform and cross-modding support
    • Scorched Earth SOTF map
    • Matchmaking queue
    • Character and creature customization with cosmetics
    • Lots of bug-fixes and balance and functionality improvements
• Upgraded art assets throughout the entire game.
• Newly-designed holiday events released as mods so they’re always available to play!
• New content, QoL improvements, balance, and gameplay changes.

In addition, a new canonical-story expansion pack for ARK: Survival Ascended that will be available in Q4 2023. This DLC will feature four new creatures with more details to be revealed later this year.

ARK: Survival Ascended is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC in October 2023.