Recent reviews by Bwicked

Not a fan of how Snail Games is managing this game. Until Snail dies and Studio WildCard gets their IP back from them, I really can't recommend this game. Especially as they've recently (12/16/23) singled out private servers making it more difficult to find them, while also force installing suspicious tracking files for privately hosted servers, just to better promote Nitrado's servers, which are terrible to play on.

There are issues with:
No Display Options if you have more than one monitor and you prefer opening the game on a different monitor.
Dinos/Tames falling through floors and foundations.
Dinos spawning in the mesh, very evident in caves or queen bees along cliff edges.
Beacon loot sometimes inaccessible as they land inside the mesh or up on awkward cliffs.
Water Tap sound doesn't stay off when you select to close the faucet. If you leave render range and return, the faucet sound returns even though they show as off.

The FPS is terrible unless you have the latest and greatest thousand dollar video card. I'm running an EVGA 3090 TI FTW3 and default settings I average 35-45 FPS on default settings before turning settings down. Also running 64GB 6400mhz DDR5, Core I9 13900K CPU, and a 4TB NVME SSD.

It's sad to see a lot of the same problems that ASE had, resurfacing in ASA. This time, it's worse due to the incompetency of debt infested Snail Games making terrible financial decisions and taking ARK Ascended along for the ride.

Updated Edit:

The Launch of Ark Ascended will render the current games and DLCs for sale obsolete and you have to buy the game again if you want to continue playing.

They are basically holding ARK: Survival Evolved for Ransom.

They are ending all support for it, removing servers, and making all Mods for their Ransom version become paid mod DLC and controlled by Overwolf, which is known for slowing computer systems to a crawl just having it installed.
-End of Edit.

With Wild Cards announcement that they would redo the game in Unreal Engine 5 for free, I was excited.

Sadly they walked back their statement and made it ever worse by stating they are ending support for the current game, and making everyone re-purchase the game if they want to keep playing it. They don't seem to be giving anyone an option with this decision.

I think this comes from Snail games and not Wild Card, as it seemed that Wild Card wanted to remake the game for free, but then Snail told them they couldn't do it for free. As of this terrible decision by both parties, I can no longer recommend this game after all the money I've already put into it. Not only have I bought the game and all the DLCs, I have also built my own $4,500 dedicated server for me and my friends and I have nearly the same hours in the game, dollar for dollar. Double that if you include time watching streams on twitch and youtube of others playing.

As the decision was made to force players to buy the game again, I have made the decision to stop playing all together. As I already own the game and all the DLC, buying the game again is not going to happen. I also am no longer interested in ARK2 coming out.

Snail and Wild Card have given their ARK player base the middle finger and the "Pay our upgrade Ransom or else" option if we want to continue our journeys with ARK, So I'll give them two middle fingers and a negative review.

If you are thinking of putting any money on this game, don't. They are ending all support for it and it's no longer worth the money. I'm not one for leaving reviews. I think it's sick that this game is still available for sale on steam when they plan to force everyone to upgrade to ARK Ascended and they've said nothing from the current game will be able to transfer to the updated game.

The only way I might put any money on this game is if ARK Ascended took up a quarter of the disk space on my system and to me, that might be worth $10 at best. At least quitting this game will free up over half a TB of SSD space I can use for other games. I have been having a lot of fun in RUST, and I don't even mind buying the Skins in Rust. Not to mention that I love that Rust has added electrical automation for storage and defenses, something ARK has always been lacking. Rust is also designed so that every player should be able to achieve end game play within a month as they often perform force wipes of the game. Whereas in ARK, you'd be lucky to reach end game unlocking all tiers and TEK within that time. Perhaps Wild Card should take some notes.

TL:DR
Support for this game is ending and you'll be wasting your money.
If you're really interested in buying this game, wait for ARK Ascended to be released and buy that.
Those who've already bought the game are being screwed and forced to buy the game again as all servers will be taken down when ARK Ascended is released.

Dark and Light launched with some issues. The game has a really unique feel and I see a lot of potential once the game is more complete. I've only been playing a few days and I'm having just as much fun, if not more, as Ark when it first came out. While some things are like Ark and some of the console commands are similar. The game isn't Ark, it just uses the same game engine so It's going to have similar issues while it's in Early Access.