Ark: Survival Ascended, a remastered version of the Unreal Engine 5-powered, poop-harvesting dinosaur trainer Ark: Survival Evolved, was announced as if it would be a free upgrade. 50 including pre-orders of Ark 2. When it was officially announced as part of a $50 bundle that included a pre-order of Ark 2, fans were not impressed. Studio Wildcard reversed course and announced that rather than include the remaster with pre-orders of the sequel, it would instead include several DLC upgrades, with more to follow as free updates after launch. Also, the price was increased by $10.

Studio Wildcard had hoped to release the remaster in late August, but it has now been pushed back to October. According to the studio's latest newsletter, "Working with Unreal Engine 5.2 was challenging, but also very exciting. Coupled with the work required to support a fully cross-platform modifiable gaming ecosystem on consoles and PCs, it is clear that we need a little more time."

"Scorched Earth" will be released with the "The Island" expansion bundled with it, but it has had to be moved to a post-launch update and additional DLC maps have been delayed." Scorched Earth will be available to ASA this December, while Ragnarok and Aberration will be available in Q1 2024, with the rest of the maps available later.

And yet another price change: the price of "Ark: Survival Ascended" will be $40 for the launch discount and then $45 during the Early Access period, which is expected to last until late 2024.

With this delay, Studio Wildcard's planned August 31 closure of the original version's official servers has also been postponed. It is now online until September 30. That is if nothing changes during this time.

"Ark 2" starring Vin Diesel is scheduled for release at the end of 2024.