In an unusually candid moment, Studio Wildcard’s co-founder has said that the servers underpinning Ark: Survival Ascended “run like ass.”
Revised survival game Ark: Survival Ascended has been greeted with mixed reviews since it launched into Early Access in late October, and even its developer, Studio Wildcard, seems open that there’s room for improvement.
As reported by Eurogamer, studio co-founder Jeremy Stieglitz has admitted that the game’s servers – in terms of their stability and speed – are “ass.”
“The servers are ass,” Stieglitz said during the Extra Life Charity Stream on Twitch. “They run like ass, and their stability is ass.”
First announced in April, Ark: Survival Ascended is a current-gen reworking of Studio Wildcard’s own hit, Ark: Survival Evolved. Shifting platforms to Unreal Engine 5, Survival Ascended was delayed several times – apparently due to the challenges of working with Epic’s new engine – and also sparked a bit of pre-release controversy.
Initially, Studio Wildcard only planned to make Ark: Survival Ascended available as part of the Respawned Bundle, a $50 collection that would have also included a pre-order of Ark 2 – a full-blown sequel that has itself been subject to repeated delays. It also emerged that Ark: Survival Evolved would have its servers taken off-line, essentially forcing existing fans to buy the aforementioned bundle in order to keep playing their favourite dinosaur-filled survival game.
The backlash was such that Studio Wildcard scrapped the bundle altogether, and announced that Ark: Survival Ascended would be available as a standalone purchase instead. The price? $59.99, which was more than the bundle originally announced. (The studio has since released Ark: Survival Ascended at the price of $44.99, or £37.99.)
Stieglitz has said that Ark: Survival Evolved’s “ass” server situation will be fixed “imminently,” though when it’ll happen isn’t currently clear. Certainly, skimming through Steam reviews, server issues seem to be a common complaint, as well as bugs and crashes. “I tamed a bird,” one user reports, “named it poopy butt, then my game crashed.”
Ark 2, meanwhile – which stars a digitised Vin Diesel – is currently due for release at some point in 2024.
