My Thoughts on Ark Survival Ascended

My Thoughts on Ark Survival Ascended The Good It&gays a bittersweet feeling watching streamers dive into the game. I have poured countless hours into Ark, with fond memories of dino taming, getting my first Rex and Giga. Getting destroyed on official. Roasting on Scorched Earth. Initially, Ark Survival Ascended looks stunning on Unreal Engine 5—the shadows in the jungle are truly epic. It&gays photorealistic. If you&gayre blessed with a top-tier computer, the visuals are jaw-dropping. However, for most of us struggling with skyrocketing GPU prices, we&gayll likely experience the game on medium settings with clouds and other advanced features turned off. Without these fancy settings, the graphical quality doesn&gayt significantly surpass that of the original Ark Survival Evolved. On the upside, the baby dinos are incredibly cute, and the addition of voice actors for the explorer notes adds a nice touch, reminiscent of Jurassic Park. The building mechanics have also seen considerable upgrades. While some may argue that this detracts from the old-school charm of janky snap glitches that experts used creatively, the changes generally improve the building experience. The Bad Even if the game ran flawlessly and looked amazing on most computers (which it doesn&gayt), we&gayre still asked to shell out money for a title originally advertised as a free add-on to Ark 2. This was later rescinded and it became a full-priced game. The issue? We&gayve already played this game. It&gays the same island map, featuring the same dinos (with one new addition), locations, and bosses. The only significant change is its adaptation to Unreal Engine 5. Another point of contention is the game&gays hurried release, likely due to looming financial penalties from Nitrado, who had loaned Studio Wildcard millions to stay afloat. As a result, the game is riddled with bugs and crashes, leaving me concerned about the working conditions at Studio Wildcard. The Ugly When Nitrado loaned Studio Wildcard the money, they added a stipulation that may well be the death knell for Ark&gays longevity: Nitrado is the exclusive host for Ark Survival Ascended. This means you can&gayt play on a private server unless you pay Nitrado; no other hosting companies can even offer the game. The lack of a Steam server ID further restricts hosting options. This could fragment and ultimately destroy the community. The financial mismanagement by Studio Wildcard jeopardizes the entire franchise. They may recover, but this episode has soured my view of Ark. The game that once led the pack is now a bloated mess of broken promises and betrayal, and as it stands, it&gays one I can&gayt in good conscience support.