Ark: Survival Evolved officially taken offline

Ark: Survival Evolved servers have been taken offline, as the game will become the remastered Ark: Survival Ascended.

This past weekend, 30 September, the developers of Ark: Survival Evolved pulled the live-service game offline, as it’s currently undergoing yet another transformation, adding new features, in-game content, and a fresh coat of paint.

Check out the cinematic trailer for Ark 2 below.

Its new name will be Ark: Survival Ascended and it’ll apparently be a significant upgrade that takes advantage of current-gen hardware, namely high-end PCs, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. It’ll also utilise Unreal Engine 5.

The upgrade was announced last year, and was given a release date of August, but was unfortunately delayed due to unknown reasons. Now though, the update is definitely going ahead, as players will be unable to play Ark: Survival for a few days while work begins on implementing the changes.

Unfortunately, this upgrade won't be free, as players new and old will have to buy the new version as a separate game, which unfortunately means all players will be starting from scratch, as their previous progress and data won't be carried over.

If you haven’t played Ark, it’s essentially an open-world, online survival game, where players are dropped onto a large map filled with monsters, dinosaurs, and potentially hostile players. You start out with nothing but the limited clothes on your back and eventually craft your way to the top, building bases, acquiring better gear and even taming the dinosaurs, which you can ride into battle.

It’s grown quite popular over the years, hence the continued support for the game with new updates, and there’s even an Ark 2 currently in development, expected to release sometime in 2024.

As for Ark: Survival Ascended, there’s currently no release date, though the next-gen update will definitely be dropping sometime this month, meaning now might be the perfect time to jump into it if you haven’t played it, especially since everyone will be starting from scratch again.