After months of delays and controversy, Ark: Survival Ascended finally made its way to Steam last week. However, the Unreal Engine 5 remaster of Ark: Survival Evolved got off to a rocky start after players called the game’s optimization “trash”. With over 16,000 reviews already, Survival Ascended currently has a “mixed” review badge on Steam.
However, this doesn’t appear to have done any damage to the game’s player base, as Survival Ascended broke through into Steam’s top ten most popular titles yesterday (via ArkAscendedNews). At the time of writing this article, Survival Ascended has slipped down to number thirteen in Steam’s charts, but is still averaging around 50,000 concurrent players.
When it broke through into Steam’s top ten games by current players, Ark: Survival Ascended sat at an impressive 75,000 players and peaking at just shy of 100,000. Other live service games, such as Rust and Team Fortress 2, were floating between 90,000 and 94,000 current players, respectively.
Ark: Survival Ascended was also Steam’s most-sold game between October 24th and October 31st, beating out the likes of Cities: Skylines 2, Football Manager 2024, EA Sports FC 24, Baldur’s Gate 3, and many other hugely popular titles. Despite the rather lacklustre reception from fans, Survival Ascended is clearly off to a strong start.
Currently only available for PC via Steam, Ark: Survival Ascended is also set to hit PlayStation and Xbox platforms this November. In a recent blog post on the official Ark website, Studio Wildcard announced the delay for Survival Ascended’s console release, saying that the team had “identified some critical issues in the multiplayer version of the game that would have had major implications for the console versions of the game.”
Studio Wildcard went on to say, “Unfortunately, due to these issues, we’ve decided to delay the launch of the Xbox and PlayStation versions of the game until November”. So, it could still be another few weeks until Survival Ascended hits consoles, but PC players can jump into the completely recreated and redesigned world of Ark right now.