Ark Survival Ascended is getting review-bombed on Steam. Currently sitting at a Mixed rating thanks to only 44% of reviews being positive, Ark Survival Ascended is clearly not what fans had in mind.
But if Ark Survival Ascended is just the bigger, better Ark Survival Evolved, then why is it getting review-bombed? Let me answer that for you.
Related: How is Ark Survival Ascended different compared to Ark Survival Evolved?
Ark Survival Ascended lands Mixed Steam reviews for absurd PC requirements and poor optimization
The two reasons why people are review-bombing Ark Survival Ascended are because of the absurd PC requirements the game has and the subsequent poor optimization.
A few Steam reviews report Ark Survival Ascended crashing while most of them complain about frame rates and stutters even with the recommended (or higher) PC requirements. So far, Ark Survival Ascended hasn’t crashed on me, but I’ve only played single-player so far which I think has been my saving grace.
Ark Survival Ascended was built using Unreal Engine 5 and boasts state-of-the-art graphical technologies. The recommended PC requirements for Ark Survival Ascended are a bit extreme. If you didn’t buy premium PC parts in the last five years, you won’t be able to run Ark Survival Ascended at its best which will result in a negative experience.
Ark Survival Ascended recommended system requirements include an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 and the minimum requires an NVIDIA GeForce 1080. While most people may have at least an NVIDIA GeForce 1080 graphics card, playing Ark Survival Ascended on the minimum system requirements isn’t ideal and is one reason players are upset.
I’ve been playing Ark Survival Ascended since the moment it’s been playable. It’s visually and technically stunning. I have a fairly powerful system with 16 GB RAM, an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X processor, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 TI, and the game runs fine for me.
My frame rates were comfortable around 40 instead of 60 and I can’t max out the graphics, but that said, Ark Survival Ascended has never crashed on me even while I had it open all day swapping between writing and researching and playing.
I think the main problem people are having with Ark Survival Ascended is the optimization in multiplayer servers. Though I haven’t experienced this myself, it seems the majority of negative reviews either don’t have powerful enough machines or experienced abysmal performance in multiplayer servers.
Though I didn’t experience it then, many players are comparing Studio Wildcard’s Ark Survival Ascended early access blunder to Ark Survival Evolved’s early access. In my experience, the game is gorgeous and fun if you’re playing single-player. To make Ark Survival Ascended better, the hard truth is that players need to upgrade their rigs and Studio Wildcard needs to release beefy performance patches. Until that happens, Ark Survival Ascended will continue to get review-bombed.
Other Ark Survival Ascended articles
