Why Did Ark Survival Evolved Get a Negative Steam Review From Player with 35,000 Hours in the Game?!?

Let’s break this down a bit. The reviewer refers to ASA, which is Ark Survival Ascended, and ASE, which is Ark Survival Evolved. It seems that the issues started with the release of Ark Aquatica. It’s a special DLC for Ark Survival Evolved to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the game’s PC release. And, if you thought the reviews on the main game are rough, check out the reviews on the DLC. One reviewer, “curlyontherun,” took the time to write a lengthy explanation of what’s wrong with it.

“This is not a DLC. It’s a corrosive patch of corporate negligence that infects your entire game, breaks mod support, corrupts your UI, and tanks performance — all courtesy of Snail Games, the absolute cancer dragging Ark into the dirt.”

That’s just part of what they had to say. And there are so many more. The developers are aware of the issues. And they released a statement:

“Our top priority remains to fix an issue with the game engine on the live version of ARK: Survival Evolved (360.1) ; proving to be complex, a solution continues to be developed in order to address mods from instantly crashing and we look forward to posting an update when possible. Today, we have included a fix that will continue to be tested, currently tested mods are listed below in the Patch Notes section.”

Oof. That’s all well and good, but how could something like this happen in the first place? Granted, part of the problems involve mods, but if it breaks most mods, isn’t that something that could have been tested? It seems like a bad idea to anger your loyal fan base. And, if a player who spent nearly 4 years of their life in your game is ready to quit, what does that mean for less dedicated folks? Ouch.

Anything Else?

The angriest Ark Survival Evolved player has played about 32 hours since writing the review. So maybe their patches are helping, but it’s too soon to tell. We sincerely hope the game can be set to rights for the folks who play it. We also hope the development team has learned something valuable from this experience.