ARK: Survival Ascended: Server transfers postponed – fans are pissed

ARK: Survival Ascended remains successful, but also controversial. The condition of the game and various delays had already caused a lot of annoyance in fan circles – and now the next shitstorm is breaking out because the promised server transfers are also coming later.

ARK: Survival Ascended is a remake of the survival classic ARK: Survival Evolved and was intended to bring the game into the modern era and at the same time prepare for the sequel ARK 2. But not everything went according to plan, because the release had to be postponed several times at short notice and there were enough problems that made fans angry. Anyone who thought that improvement was slowly in sight would be wrong.

The makers of Studio Wildcard have now announced via social media that the promised server transfer feature had to be postponed (again) at short notice. This should now follow in the new week on February 7th, 2024 – basically a very short postponement, but understanding in the community is slowly but surely apparently exhausted. Reason: It is still the third time that Studio Wildcard has postponed the server transfers after they should have been available in January 2024.

“Unfortunately, server transfers will have to be postponed until Wednesday, February 7, 2024. We understand this is frustrating news, but due to the complexity of integrating player-created cosmetic items, network structures, and the new modding framework in the coming months Updates, the server transfers now require longer until next week,” the statement says. The release postponements now extend again from January 24th to January 31st, then to February 2nd and now to February 7th, 2024.

The feedback from users is extremely critical. Some voices now describe the constant postponements by the developer as absolutely “embarrassing”. “Maybe you just don’t release data and then change it five times… some things never seem to change,” said another. “Why are you even announcing anything if you’re not ready for it? It’s just embarrassing for all of you at this point,” says the next player.

And then there’s the other type of player who isn’t so frustrated by constant delays, but rather wants additional work on the actual game rather than new features. After all, ARK: Survival Ascended still has enough errors that need to be fixed, and the title could use quality-of-life innovations, also because the optimization is sometimes poor.

When it was released on Steam in October last year, a number of players complained about the modest optimization. For example, some users complained that a maximum of 50 fps was possible even with an RTX 3080 and on low graphics settings. So there is still a lot of work waiting for the developers – not only in terms of the game, but also for the community, because they have to be won back!