I know for a fact that asa can be a great game, so its always really sad to see it in its current state. sadly, its not just this game either, as games like overwatch 2 have also made little improvement to making their game enjoyable to all that play it (in my opinion). I find it really sad when I don't enjoy they games I used to.
The crazy thing is this timeline isn't even accurate anymore even though it's so recent. You can see on the description for the Bobs tall tales DLC they already changed the dates for Aberration and Extinction w/ Aberration coming out in quarter 4 late this year and Extinction coming out in the 1st quarter of 2025. Honestly as of right now I wouldnt recommend this game to anyone who really is willing to get into the franchise, maybe once the initial maps release from Extinction and back i'll start recommending it since there's enough content to keep people preoccupied but until then you really are just paying to future content. At this point you're basically a backer.
Very well put. I remember wanting to add the fact that the timeline is very wrong now too, but the vid was rendering at that point so it was too late lol.
lmao you hit the nail on the head. I was mid comment about their business model is EXTREMELY strange. This game should cost 20$. DLC maps should be like 9.99$. Why? SELL SKINS OH MY GOD. It would be fundamentally printing money lmao. How many people would pay 5 bucks to skin their favorite dino? How many people would pay 2.99$ for some cool particle effects or alternate armor models? Its insane they want to charge upfront instead of use their service model effectively lol. Great video dude.
And then if they did that you and everybody else would be complaining about how the game is filled with paid cosmetics and doesn't look like ARK anymore. No matter how the devs go about it, they get the bad end of the stick. Loss/loss in this era
@@Lara_Croft and devs getting shit on for making poor decisions is hardly something to pity lol. You can implement a live service model properly and fairly. Look how poorly hell divers is doing....
@@RockSkull it's crazy how they are going about the whole thing. Im just glad steam has a generous return policy lol. I played for a good hour and a half and went "lol nope". I think it's great for first time buyers or if you have a big Ole group thats playing it, otherwise the og is just much smoother experience. Sure looked pretty though
honestly im pretty sure the release dates are revealed by the marketing team with no regard for the dev team. ive been working a job in a similar boat where the marketing team said a date for the premier of it and the date is wildly too soon. we are having to rush things and some features were even cut due to time. it isnt a game but idk if im allowed to say what it is cause NDA and idk the exact details of it and i like having a job lol but trust me marketing teams saying one date not even taking into consideration the logistics of it isnt unheard of. wouldnt be surprised if the ASA devs are in the same boat
Oof yeah knowing snail games/wildcard's history would not be surprised if this was the case for them too. ASA definitely feels like a unfinished product in a lot of ways that was rushed out because the people at the top needed more money.
@@RockSkull aye, its crazy to me some snooty rich higher ups are the ones calling the shots and not the creative team which are the reason those guys are rich in the first place. without the devs and creative teams these companies wouldnt exist and yet they are bossed around like goons
@@RockSkulldont you love it when the CEO of your producer wastes the money your game made on an gaming EV (car with built in gaming PC lmfao) that goes bust in 3 years?
They're at least addressing the performance issues. Apparently with Aberration's upcoming release they're optimizing the heck out of the game by, among other things, updating from Unreal 5.2 (which has TONS of performance issues) to Unreal 5.4, as well as adding support for frame gen for AMD graphics cards like Nvidia has with DLSS. If the Ark Ascended Enable FSR 3 mod is anything to go by, which is essentially the same thing, the performance increase will be massive. Literally double or triple FPS. I use this mod and can confirm that.
yeah they were at least honest enough to admit this fact themselves too actually a bit ago. It sucks that ASA was originally meant to be Free to play, but they changed it last second because they were low on money.
The thing with paid mods is that the modders themselves don't want to sell mods, they're happy with tips and community appreciation. Paid mods is basically the company behind the game making worse mods than the fans and charging for them. That aside, the main Nope for me is the nitrado exclusivity. Nitrado is VERY far from the best server provider. (That and how scummy and awful with money Snailgame is)
Not sure how to feel about asa. I love the ark universe, and have thousands of hours in ase. But the performance issues, lack of FREE content and updates, and the paid mods are all really big negatives for me. Mods should not ever be paid, at least in my opinion. Mods in their very conception are volunteer work, and those who wanted to support creators would do so through donations. But they way they are making Mods paid now is essentially stealing from the creators and forcing them to share their wages with the company. The devs do very little work in terms of content or optimization updates, because they can just wait for a modder to do it for them. It's the same mindset tod Howard has in regards to the fallout franchise. So modders are left doing all the work, making all the content and then only recieving a chunk of what their work is worth. And what's more, is ASA markets the modders work as their own, in their trailers for the game. The fact that now they are starting to release pay to win dlc characters and the fact that this game likely won't be finished for another 3 or 4 years at least, is ridiculous. UE6 will be out, by the time this game is done developing. Idk... I fight the urge to purchase the game because i love ark, and asa looks beautiful (even though it's the ue5 engine doing all the work). But there are just too many issues with the game and the company to commit. One last thing, is why the hell aren't the older dinos redone to have more fluid animations and kits? Why does Bronto still have a walk-shuffle like he has to take a poo, instead of looking smooth and we'll animated like garugas Brachi? Wildcard is literally doing absolutely nothing with their own hands. Modders make the content, the engine makes the game look good, and all wildcard has to do is focus on paid dlc packs and be lazy asses.
Thanks for the info. I was looking into buying ark on pc because console optimization is rubbish between pixilation, lack of spawns, and 30 fps on a ps5.
If you have a 4060 at the very least, and you are willing to put up with snail games Other than that it's pretty solid imo Also it's very good on console, due to being actually decently optimized, and now it has mods
Good to hear it runs well on console, I didn't really know. I still have issues with the pricing and how devs run things in general, but if you can get past that ig ark enjoyers can still have a good time with it.
@@RockSkull i haven't actually played the game on console so im not 100% sure, im just making a guess that it's actually good because console games always have better optimization , im going to look for videos of ASS on ps5, to see how it actually performs
@@RockSkull i just watched 2 videos, it seems the ps5 runs it at 4k ~30 fps, which isn't as bad as i expected, i just wish they gave you the option to reduce graphics to get solid 60 fps, but i play on 1080p because I don't have a 4k display to play on, so i will probably get 60 fps whenever i buy the game And interestingly, the game graphics look better on the ps5 compared to the xbox series x
i really wanted it to be good... i wanted to recapture the memories of playin for the first time just without all the crashes.... welp. look where we are.. not even mentioning all the other bad stuff like p2w stuff..
So both Arks are currently on sale right now for PS5. Which version do you recommend fully? Ark Survival Ascended or Ark Survival Evolved Ultimate Edition? This will be my first ark game so I'm not really sure which version should I get.
In this current moment I would probably personally still recommend ARK: Survival Evolved. Both games offer pretty much the same experience, but ARK: Survival Evolved performs better and has more content currently. I would only recommend ASA if you are a big fan of prettier graphics over gameplay. Also I should mention ASA on console does give you access to mods too unlike Ark Survival Evolved if you are a fan of those.
Hey thanks for the video! My son likes ves dinos and im thinking of getting this for him purely as a single player game. Is it easy to get into as a totally new player and xan the whole thing be done offline?
Yes it can be completed offline, but I admit it's a bit of a difficult game to really learn the ins and outs of at first. Possibly, though, if you learn the game with him you both could have a decent time with it. I've actually heard a bunch of stories of parents and their kids bonding over this game. I should mention though that I think its predecessor, ARK: Survival Evolved, will probably give him a better experience. Mostly because ARK: Survival Ascended is in a bit of an unfinished state at the moment.
Should i delete Asa and Redownload Evolved ? İ have rtx 4070 laptop and i can run Evolved on Epic settings with 60 fps meanwhile it kinda struggle to do it in Ase
If you can deal with the lower frames, and prefer prettier graphics I would say you can keep ASA. Otherwise ASE overall will most likely give you a better experience gameplay/performance wise. Up to you at the end of the day depending on what you prefer.
I've seen one that automatically puts some commands in that help fps, but I've found you are usually just better off putting in the commands yourself to customize your experience. There's a bunch of commands if you look around online, like one I use often "r.volumetriccloud 0"
As an avid player with thousands of hours between asa and it’s predecessor, I can say that it’s in a real sh*t state rn; still cheaters galore on top of the gamestate
Yeah still hear talk about cheating being a massive problem ever since the release of ASA which is why I mentioned it in the vid. Sucks they seem to be ignoring it mostly.
@@xdylanx2476 if you can withstand the constant crashes and poor performance I mentioned in the vid you may still have a decent time with it, but as a singleplayer PVE player I would still recommend just playing the OG game for a smoother experience and better price.
@@xdylanx2476 if you play PvE on a private server or unofficial that’s moderated, it’s not horrible; still buggy as hell w/ even the patches being delayed now, but at least you don’t have to deal w/ the cheats and megas
The game should be free. That’s how I got it on gamepass. Also don’t expect a for-profit game studio to care about anything besides money; that’s why modders make better games than the actual developers.
I actually had a part of the vid where I suggested the game should be free to play as well, but it got removed cuz I'm very uncertain that the devs would ever make that sorta move.
Yeah, but I can say as a mainly solo player myself it isn't really worth your time or $35. It's just in an unfinished state and you are way better off just playing the game before for a way better experience.
ARK should be open world game like,Witcher 3,Horizon Zero Dawn,GTA5 online,Cities Skylines,and Sims 3.And if you didn't understand why,then play them,and see for yours self.But,to my experience.Every game that starts with first person view,don't have inverted X and Y axis,mix content,200 hours long gameplay,and no intresting quests and story,IS CRAP! And the worst thing about PS4 gaming is,that nobody makes good games for PS4,they just asamble something fast,and sell it as 'something good'.But gaming industry keep on forgeting,that they games biggest users are unemployed people,who needs long games to keep them self bussy,and conected with others on online gaming sessions.And since PlayStation store has introduced,QR smartphone scan code,lot of old PlayStation store users has left out from it,and can't acess it.And me my self,i'm seriously dissapointed in gaming industry,becouse of theirs misstreatment of slavic culture,to that point,that i would like to sue them all.And i'm even more dissapointed in gaming industry,for not having any slavic themed game at all.And triple worst are mindless shooters,that are financed by Pentagon,for american war machine.PS:TAKE GAMING SERIOUSLY
Shit game, no point in charging people twice to update the level of Graphics when they already own the first game ASE, should have been a free update, but what do I know, I just know if you rob people they are more than likely never to come back !
Honestly maybe since Ark 2 is one of the greatest mysteries to the ark community rn lol. They havent given any news on it in months other then "we are working on it"
Yeah this game was a huge disappointment. I don’t trust or like the devs, they’re scummy and just trying to get our money with as minimal effort possible. Why make Ark 2 when we can just update the graphics, add a few qol features, and leave all of the bugs. A decade of waiting and this is what we get 🖕🏻
short answer: no
long answer: nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Payin for the full ASE and then havin to pay again for asa is a nah.
I know for a fact that asa can be a great game, so its always really sad to see it in its current state. sadly, its not just this game either, as games like overwatch 2 have also made little improvement to making their game enjoyable to all that play it (in my opinion). I find it really sad when I don't enjoy they games I used to.
The best part about this comment is I feel like 90% of active ow2 enjoyers (including me) would agree with this lol
The crazy thing is this timeline isn't even accurate anymore even though it's so recent. You can see on the description for the Bobs tall tales DLC they already changed the dates for Aberration and Extinction w/ Aberration coming out in quarter 4 late this year and Extinction coming out in the 1st quarter of 2025. Honestly as of right now I wouldnt recommend this game to anyone who really is willing to get into the franchise, maybe once the initial maps release from Extinction and back i'll start recommending it since there's enough content to keep people preoccupied but until then you really are just paying to future content. At this point you're basically a backer.
Very well put. I remember wanting to add the fact that the timeline is very wrong now too, but the vid was rendering at that point so it was too late lol.
lmao you hit the nail on the head. I was mid comment about their business model is EXTREMELY strange. This game should cost 20$. DLC maps should be like 9.99$. Why? SELL SKINS OH MY GOD. It would be fundamentally printing money lmao. How many people would pay 5 bucks to skin their favorite dino? How many people would pay 2.99$ for some cool particle effects or alternate armor models? Its insane they want to charge upfront instead of use their service model effectively lol.
Great video dude.
Lol yeah I'm so surprised they didn't go this route just looking at how other modern games do it. Appreciate the kind words!
And then if they did that you and everybody else would be complaining about how the game is filled with paid cosmetics and doesn't look like ARK anymore. No matter how the devs go about it, they get the bad end of the stick. Loss/loss in this era
@@Lara_Croft hard disagree. Skins and cosmetic events are already in the game.
@@Lara_Croft and devs getting shit on for making poor decisions is hardly something to pity lol. You can implement a live service model properly and fairly. Look how poorly hell divers is doing....
@@RockSkull it's crazy how they are going about the whole thing. Im just glad steam has a generous return policy lol. I played for a good hour and a half and went "lol nope". I think it's great for first time buyers or if you have a big Ole group thats playing it, otherwise the og is just much smoother experience. Sure looked pretty though
honestly im pretty sure the release dates are revealed by the marketing team with no regard for the dev team. ive been working a job in a similar boat where the marketing team said a date for the premier of it and the date is wildly too soon. we are having to rush things and some features were even cut due to time. it isnt a game but idk if im allowed to say what it is cause NDA and idk the exact details of it and i like having a job lol but trust me marketing teams saying one date not even taking into consideration the logistics of it isnt unheard of. wouldnt be surprised if the ASA devs are in the same boat
Oof yeah knowing snail games/wildcard's history would not be surprised if this was the case for them too. ASA definitely feels like a unfinished product in a lot of ways that was rushed out because the people at the top needed more money.
@@RockSkull aye, its crazy to me some snooty rich higher ups are the ones calling the shots and not the creative team which are the reason those guys are rich in the first place. without the devs and creative teams these companies wouldnt exist and yet they are bossed around like goons
@@RockSkulldont you love it when the CEO of your producer wastes the money your game made on an gaming EV (car with built in gaming PC lmfao) that goes bust in 3 years?
They're at least addressing the performance issues. Apparently with Aberration's upcoming release they're optimizing the heck out of the game by, among other things, updating from Unreal 5.2 (which has TONS of performance issues) to Unreal 5.4, as well as adding support for frame gen for AMD graphics cards like Nvidia has with DLSS. If the Ark Ascended Enable FSR 3 mod is anything to go by, which is essentially the same thing, the performance increase will be massive. Literally double or triple FPS. I use this mod and can confirm that.
that may make me come back. biggest issue for me was performance. granted i dont have a crazy beefy PC, it shouldnt be so bad
Good video
Appreciate it! I tried my best here to explain it in a way newcomers would understand.
ASA is just a cash grab to fund Ark2. I don't like paying to be a beta-tester.
yeah they were at least honest enough to admit this fact themselves too actually a bit ago. It sucks that ASA was originally meant to be Free to play, but they changed it last second because they were low on money.
The thing with paid mods is that the modders themselves don't want to sell mods, they're happy with tips and community appreciation.
Paid mods is basically the company behind the game making worse mods than the fans and charging for them.
That aside, the main Nope for me is the nitrado exclusivity. Nitrado is VERY far from the best server provider. (That and how scummy and awful with money Snailgame is)
Paid mods are made by community modders (Garuga anomalocaris, Moro Livyatan, Appalachia map, for example). What you're describing is paid DLC.
It's still terrible in terms of optimization to play 1440p high settings you need a 4070 super
Not sure how to feel about asa. I love the ark universe, and have thousands of hours in ase. But the performance issues, lack of FREE content and updates, and the paid mods are all really big negatives for me. Mods should not ever be paid, at least in my opinion. Mods in their very conception are volunteer work, and those who wanted to support creators would do so through donations. But they way they are making Mods paid now is essentially stealing from the creators and forcing them to share their wages with the company. The devs do very little work in terms of content or optimization updates, because they can just wait for a modder to do it for them. It's the same mindset tod Howard has in regards to the fallout franchise. So modders are left doing all the work, making all the content and then only recieving a chunk of what their work is worth. And what's more, is ASA markets the modders work as their own, in their trailers for the game. The fact that now they are starting to release pay to win dlc characters and the fact that this game likely won't be finished for another 3 or 4 years at least, is ridiculous. UE6 will be out, by the time this game is done developing. Idk... I fight the urge to purchase the game because i love ark, and asa looks beautiful (even though it's the ue5 engine doing all the work). But there are just too many issues with the game and the company to commit. One last thing, is why the hell aren't the older dinos redone to have more fluid animations and kits? Why does Bronto still have a walk-shuffle like he has to take a poo, instead of looking smooth and we'll animated like garugas Brachi? Wildcard is literally doing absolutely nothing with their own hands. Modders make the content, the engine makes the game look good, and all wildcard has to do is focus on paid dlc packs and be lazy asses.
Thanks for the info. I was looking into buying ark on pc because console optimization is rubbish between pixilation, lack of spawns, and 30 fps on a ps5.
this is my first ark game to play, so i dont have any complaints that hinge around ark ase being better...this is the only one ive played
Evolved is so much better. In ascended the movement and everything is just weird. In evolved it feels more polished.
If you have a 4060 at the very least, and you are willing to put up with snail games
Other than that it's pretty solid imo
Also it's very good on console, due to being actually decently optimized, and now it has mods
Good to hear it runs well on console, I didn't really know. I still have issues with the pricing and how devs run things in general, but if you can get past that ig ark enjoyers can still have a good time with it.
@@RockSkull i haven't actually played the game on console so im not 100% sure, im just making a guess that it's actually good because console games always have better optimization , im going to look for videos of ASS on ps5, to see how it actually performs
@@RockSkull i just watched 2 videos, it seems the ps5 runs it at 4k ~30 fps, which isn't as bad as i expected, i just wish they gave you the option to reduce graphics to get solid 60 fps, but i play on 1080p because I don't have a 4k display to play on, so i will probably get 60 fps whenever i buy the game
And interestingly, the game graphics look better on the ps5 compared to the xbox series x
i really wanted it to be good... i wanted to recapture the memories of playin for the first time just without all the crashes.... welp. look where we are.. not even mentioning all the other bad stuff like p2w stuff..
So both Arks are currently on sale right now for PS5.
Which version do you recommend fully?
Ark Survival Ascended or Ark Survival Evolved Ultimate Edition?
This will be my first ark game so I'm not really sure which version should I get.
In this current moment I would probably personally still recommend ARK: Survival Evolved. Both games offer pretty much the same experience, but ARK: Survival Evolved performs better and has more content currently. I would only recommend ASA if you are a big fan of prettier graphics over gameplay. Also I should mention ASA on console does give you access to mods too unlike Ark Survival Evolved if you are a fan of those.
I'd love for the upgraded building, map and hud to come to ASE.
Lol honestly at this point I agree. Luckily there are some mods that can give you upgraded ASE features like s+, but not all of em.
Hey thanks for the video! My son likes ves dinos and im thinking of getting this for him purely as a single player game. Is it easy to get into as a totally new player and xan the whole thing be done offline?
Yes it can be completed offline, but I admit it's a bit of a difficult game to really learn the ins and outs of at first. Possibly, though, if you learn the game with him you both could have a decent time with it. I've actually heard a bunch of stories of parents and their kids bonding over this game. I should mention though that I think its predecessor, ARK: Survival Evolved, will probably give him a better experience. Mostly because ARK: Survival Ascended is in a bit of an unfinished state at the moment.
I like ark too much id say yeah
The terrain pisses me off, you constantly get stuck in holes 😢
so Essentially yall paid 50 bucks for a reskin.
But it’s still 15fps with screen tearing, right?
well that help a lot since am thinking about should i upgrade to ASA from ASE but ya i wont and wait till AS2 come out
Should i delete Asa and Redownload Evolved ? İ have rtx 4070 laptop and i can run Evolved on Epic settings with 60 fps meanwhile it kinda struggle to do it in Ase
If you can deal with the lower frames, and prefer prettier graphics I would say you can keep ASA. Otherwise ASE overall will most likely give you a better experience gameplay/performance wise. Up to you at the end of the day depending on what you prefer.
Are there mods what kind of like sodium for Minecraft but they make Ark run better
I've seen one that automatically puts some commands in that help fps, but I've found you are usually just better off putting in the commands yourself to customize your experience. There's a bunch of commands if you look around online, like one I use often "r.volumetriccloud 0"
@@RockSkull yeah it’s kind of weird because they changed around the commands a whole bunch from when I first started playing
As an avid player with thousands of hours between asa and it’s predecessor, I can say that it’s in a real sh*t state rn; still cheaters galore on top of the gamestate
Yeah still hear talk about cheating being a massive problem ever since the release of ASA which is why I mentioned it in the vid. Sucks they seem to be ignoring it mostly.
How is PvE I want to play with my girlfriend
@@xdylanx2476 if you can withstand the constant crashes and poor performance I mentioned in the vid you may still have a decent time with it, but as a singleplayer PVE player I would still recommend just playing the OG game for a smoother experience and better price.
@@xdylanx2476 if you play PvE on a private server or unofficial that’s moderated, it’s not horrible; still buggy as hell w/ even the patches being delayed now, but at least you don’t have to deal w/ the cheats and megas
bruh its 75 now
Yes! I love this game
As long as official is pure no life it’s not worth buying
no
The game should be free. That’s how I got it on gamepass. Also don’t expect a for-profit game studio to care about anything besides money; that’s why modders make better games than the actual developers.
I actually had a part of the vid where I suggested the game should be free to play as well, but it got removed cuz I'm very uncertain that the devs would ever make that sorta move.
Why is this game $35? Can I play this game offline solo?
Yeah, but I can say as a mainly solo player myself it isn't really worth your time or $35. It's just in an unfinished state and you are way better off just playing the game before for a way better experience.
@@RockSkull Thank you very much
ARK should be open world game like,Witcher 3,Horizon Zero Dawn,GTA5 online,Cities Skylines,and Sims 3.And if you didn't understand why,then play them,and see for yours self.But,to my experience.Every game that starts with first person view,don't have inverted X and Y axis,mix content,200 hours long gameplay,and no intresting quests and story,IS CRAP! And the worst thing about PS4 gaming is,that nobody makes good games for PS4,they just asamble something fast,and sell it as 'something good'.But gaming industry keep on forgeting,that they games biggest users are unemployed people,who needs long games to keep them self bussy,and conected with others on online gaming sessions.And since PlayStation store has introduced,QR smartphone scan code,lot of old PlayStation store users has left out from it,and can't acess it.And me my self,i'm seriously dissapointed in gaming industry,becouse of theirs misstreatment of slavic culture,to that point,that i would like to sue them all.And i'm even more dissapointed in gaming industry,for not having any slavic themed game at all.And triple worst are mindless shooters,that are financed by Pentagon,for american war machine.PS:TAKE GAMING SERIOUSLY
No
Guess i have to wait evne longer
I think if you own ark survival Evolved then no But i don't own ase anymore so I'll boy asa
can someone make a graphics mod for the original ark so we can ignore this crap once and for all, I know this is near impossible but one can hope.
@@efeozturk5253 lol for real
Shit game, no point in charging people twice to update the level of Graphics when they already own the first game ASE, should have been a free update, but what do I know, I just know if you rob people they are more than likely never to come back !
they just dont listen to the community anymore, thats all
so according to this 3:24 that means ARK 2 will not come this year :) maybe 2026 ? . and hope they optimize ASA then
Honestly maybe since Ark 2 is one of the greatest mysteries to the ark community rn lol. They havent given any news on it in months other then "we are working on it"
Yeah this game was a huge disappointment. I don’t trust or like the devs, they’re scummy and just trying to get our money with as minimal effort possible. Why make Ark 2 when we can just update the graphics, add a few qol features, and leave all of the bugs. A decade of waiting and this is what we get 🖕🏻
Are you drunk? You are mumbling.
@@hatelovesmisery5488 hah that's a new one