6 years after Ark: Survival Evolved left early access, Ark: Survival Evolved's remaster enters early access

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The Unreal Engine 5 version of the dino-survival game arrives on Steam today, called Ark: Survival Ascended.

It was way back in 2014 when ambitious multiplayer dinosaur survival game Ark: Survival Evolved entered early access on Steam. It was a complete smash. Despite issues like glitches, bugs, dismal optimization, and no small amount of behind the scenes drama, Ark became one of the most played games on Steam and would remain that way for nearly a decade.

Time is a flat circle covered with dinosaurs.

The Unreal 5 Engine remaster is called Ark: Survival Ascended (which has already seen its own share of drama) and is surprisingly due out today. The trailer can be seen above showing off some graphically improved dinosaurs and survivors running around and blowing each other up. 

It looks nice! It's just a little hard to get excited about because it seems like a better idea to just keep playing the original game and wait for the sequel, Ark 2, which is due out in 2024.  

How much does the Ark remaster cost? I genuinely don't know! Despite it coming out today there's no pricing on its Steam page at the moment. After it was delayed from July it went from a bundled price of $50 (with Ark 2) to a different bundled price of $60 (with extra DLC). I can't say whether or not that's changed again, however. We'll find out when it actually goes up for sale, which again, is supposed to actually happen today.

Edit: Looks like it's aiming for 4 pm Pacific launch. 

Edit: It was aiming for a 7:30 pm Pacific launch, but that was several hours ago.

Edit: It's out and it costs $45 with a 10% discount until November 1.

Christopher Livingston
Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.