Ark: Survival Evolved left early access on August 27, 2017. That's nearly 70,000 hours ago… which means if a player has logged 35,202 hours in Ark, they've essentially been playing the dino-survival game for half its lifespan.
Not only has one player actually done that, they just gave Ark a negative review on Steam. After 35,202 hours. And amazingly, even bravely, perhaps—they're also demanding a refund.
"I have enjoyed Ark for 35,000 hours, one of my favorite games to play with friends and family," the reviewer said on Steam. "I ran a ASM [Ark Server Manager] server w/mods for years until today. NOTHING works anymore."
The issue appears to be the release of Ark Aquatica, a 10-year anniversary DLC for Ark: Survival Evolved. It's currently rated on Steam as "Overwhelmingly Negative" with only 12% of its reviews positive ones. Not only are users reporting bugs and poor performance for the DLC, but also that it breaks mods, server settings, and configuration files across the entire game.
"Server doesn't match, mods don't work, and of all this is to force us to ASA [Ark: Survival Ascended, the remastered version of Ark]," the 35,000-hour player continues in their review. "I have that game as well, and it sucks. That is why we went back to ASE [Ark: Survival Evolved] and now you have managed to screw that also.
"You had something great. Hope you don't choke on your GREED!!! How do I get a refund!!" they conclude.
35,202 hours, by the way, is four years. I don't mean they've been playing Ark for four years, I mean those 35,202 hours add up to an entire, solid four years of time. Even if that includes the uptime of running a server, that is a big Ark fan you've pissed off. Maybe the biggest?
For the record, it appears publisher Snail Games is aware of the issues. "Our top priority remains to fix an issue with the game engine on the live version of ARK: Survival Evolved," reads a post on Ark's Steam page today, adding that the problem is "proving to be complex" and that "a solution continues to be developed in order to address mods from instantly crashing and we look forward to posting an update when possible."
This isn't the first time we've seen a negative review from a player with hundreds or thousands of hours in a game—Joshua recently tracked down someone who had played Battlezone 98 for 8,000 hours only to leave a negative review. (Plus, Joshua wound up agreeing with him).
But this has to be the biggest one yet, right? 35,000 hours in a single game? I don't think I've ever seen that level of commitment, especially alongside that level of disappointment. You know what? I hope they do get a refund.
It's worth noting that even after writing their scathing indictment of Ark and demanding their money back, the reviewer has played, um, an additional 32 hours in the past week. Does that mean one of the recent patches has improved the situation? I've reached out to them for further comment, and will update this story if I hear back.
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