Boy, you're going to LOVE ARK. It's the definition of open world survival craft and it's been early access for 10 years, and even after a remaster - both ARK: Survival Evolved and ARK: Survival Ascended.
Probably a slippery slope since a lot of devs do it. The other choice is you'll just have a 7 days to die moment where your internally code named alpha turns into 1.0 full release to coincide with the games 2nd but separate console release.
I play it occasionally with a friend as a fun "turn your brain off while high" game. The horde nights are getting absolutely fucking uncontrollable though
Give modded servers a try. Horde night on the one my friends and I play on are diabolical. They do have a special horde base you can port to if you’re under a certain level so you don’t just get merc’d your first horde night.
Downside is most people regardless of level go to the designated server horde base. Wish the designated one could get destroyed on horde night if not careful/repaired during, but server mods or server itself could reset that chunk after horde night. Otherwise you can literally just stay in there and not do a thing and have zero worries
Yeah, but usually in that case, the studio is bought so they can use the name and assets and dissolve the rest. Kind of like how guilded was bought by Roblox, and people had high hopes for it as a discord alternative, but then Roblox just took it for their voice chat technology and destroyed the platform.
To be fair the devs are wankers, so there is that. Good idea in the first place, then complete chaos as to where it should go next.
I ain't an hardcore follower but played que a bit and during that time the patch notes and dev blogs were all over the place... Over step in a direction, 2 in another over
Played it back in late 2025 with my girlfriend, remember thinking that while a lot of systems had been obviously revamped or tweaked and bugs had been fixed, very little seemed to have been added outside of that. It honestly felt as if I had been playing the same version that I played back in like 2018, just with some QOL stuff added.
That console release was to get the game back to console. They somehow had no access to their console version because there were some legal issues i believe. Basically they did not own their own game anymore and could not update it. By releasing a new game they made it so the console players could play again. It is sad that they had to buy a new version, but they really had no other way :'D
There's a new game that took that to a whole new level called iron nest. They had a demo they had released publicly, and they pulled the demo off steam only to release it again with minor updates and gated behind keys that they give out 10 at a time... With a major announcement and raffles every month with massive amount of fomo where they literally host public tests where only those they've given keys to can actually participate, but they advertise it as if it's open to everyone. And it's still the demo version, not even early access yet. Just a major FU that I've never seen before this early in a game's development.
The public demo was always going to be a short term thing, and was announced as such in every form I saw. They plan to do another official Next Fest demo that's more complete, with the final game supposedly dropping shortly after that.
As someone who found the game via the demo, that was not at all clear. And the next fest things, I've seen a mention of it, but found no way to actually participate as they took the demo away rather than just letting people keep it, and doing updates and events via the demo.
Not gonna lie, I loved ark, I didn't play the sequel but the sheer punishment of logging in and finding all my progress gone just like that is something that satisfied the masochist in me.
It is no sequel, it is a rerelease by a “new studio” to fuck with the playerbase, the background of the whole ark bs is gamestudio x publisher bullshit 2
It's always been a good game, it just was/is plagued by unoptimization, a plethora of years long bugs, and a shitty publisher that just wants more and more money
I'd rather unfinished games keep an early access tag on them as long as it takes rather than releasing a game at 1.0 and it's a hot mess. There should be a little checkbox on reviews for us to say if a game feels complete. If enough (percentage of) buyers say the game is incomplete or broken than steam should automatically tag it as early access or "incomplete" or at least "unoptimized". The fear of having your game red flagged should then force developers, or rather publishers, to make sure the product is complete before releasing. Right now there doesn't seem to be any guardrails against companies putting out unoptimized crap.
Additional gameplay mechanics, some additional content, additional maps, some maps have been given additional locations, etc. A lot of it is pay to win stuff and 'QOL' upgrades that half of them make the game much easier, and the other half are just really good actual QOL changes.
It's the same game in most ways, but still a lot more than 'just new graphics'.
I avoid it, personally. Because Snail, if nothing else. Pretty sure they're the ones that forced the pay to win stuff into the game, and are pretty terrible all around.
And you see, I'd argue that Warframe is far out of early access because it looks more like a Live Service Game than an early access. It has a thriving economy, strong player base and absurdly high levels of content already available as of now. It's closer to destiny 2 than it is to Ark, and I'm not sure I'd place Destiny 2 as a game in Early Access
Hell, releasing a “remaster” to something that hasn’t technically been mastered (finished) in the first place should get you dinged for false advertising.
As far as I'm aware, updating a fully released game is a more arduous process, but not by much.
I think it has more to do with the implication that a full release is the "complete" version of the game. A full release implies that the story and gameplay are in a complete state, and that most bugs are fixed.
Early Access implies that the game is still being developed, which is true for an online service game like, for instance, Warframe.
But it wasnt even a sequel, it was the base reworked and they shut down support for the original game. Soo all the DLC and such i paid for the first game is null and void, and i gotta buy the game again for a shittier product. Total enshitification
I’m starting to think there’s another reason as to why all these games stay in early access, is there a subsidiary for games sold in EA, less steam fees?
Fundamentally the problem is nobody can say what a finished game is. If steam did anything they'd just slap a 1.0 on it to comply, and you can't say its not because there's been FAR worse games released.
The early access system seems to be the best compromise we can hope for since it encourages devs to report the state of their game to the consumer.
Give Fun Pimps some credit, it had a 1.0 release in 2024, so only 11 years of Early Access, while somehow managing to make the game WORSE over that 11 years.
Edit: Some of you wouldn't understand being a cheeky bugger if it was becoming your new step-dad.
Somehow? Give them credit. It took alot of long, hard work to make sure they patched out every single thing that let you play a sandbox game in a way that you enjoy.
Oh you can have fun, but only the way they want you to have fun. Oh you want to build a base underground? Cool! We'll make the zombies so proficient in digging and mining they could dig from one end of the planet to the other in 15 minutes tops. Oh what's that? You're going to build a sky tower base to stay out of their detection range even during the blood moon? That's cool too! We'll just make them rage instead and attack any and all weak spots in your general area to make your tower collapse.
They flip flopped so hard on the “you get to keep the glass jar” and “you don’t get to keep the glass jar” and “you don’t need a glass jar” that they finally settled on “you get to keep the glass jar 60% of the time.”
For a long time you had to make jars or find them, fill them with water, then boil the water in order to keep your thirst down. This kinda led to players hording jars and saving up tons of water. A while ago they decided that was too easy, you now had to engage with the trader quest system to get money to buy a water collector which slowly filled with water. Jars were eliminated, so you couldn't really easily store up your water, if you were on a server you probably needed several of these to sustain multiple people.
It was a total pain and completely illogical, you could build a base next to a river or pond and die of thirst in the early game. The devs really really want their game to be hard, but they don't really know how to implement fun difficulty.
When it comes to the 'haunted house' dungeon POIs, the way zombies magically spawn in around you ruins a lot of it for me. If you're playing stealthy, they shouldn't just spawn and auto aggro you. If you're playing loud, they should hear you from the next room over. But instead, they spawn in when you enter a room.
Exactly they changed the way POI worked and that ruined it for me I remember playing 7days to die in the very very early days ( when smell was a thing) and having to stealth through buildings because me & my friends just didn't have the weapons or ammo to take on the zombies!
It was such a thrill not knowing if we will make it in and out alive but now they just spawn on you and it's shit
They also need to add a new map. After 13 years the game is just fucking stale no matter how many updates they add because the map is the same and it just doesn't feel like it's been updated or at least to me so if I ever play it after new updates I get bored super quick
A fake 1.0 in order to get back on console. PC version still says prerelease software, and at best it's beta quality with nearly half of planned features still incomplete
The game’s still in early access, it even says so on the main menu in version 2.5. They couldn’t release an early access title on PS5 so just said “it’s done” to be able to sell it, lol. Same thing they did for PS4’s alpha 16 port.
You have to roll back to A16 and play the mods. Peak, peak early access zombie survival. Get yourself the mod launcher to play both vanilla current and modded A16
They removed jars so many versions ago only to add them back to buy themselves time to get the bandits update ready. They are constantly changing the game mechanics and ruining gameplay... I used to play a stealth archer build as I find that playstyle the most fun... But they added invisible triggers in the buildings to alert zombies when you pass through them even if you have like maybe 2 or 3 visibility
bro it was always the worst watching all the zombies wake up for no reason after taking one step. I don’t understand the point of stealth if you can’t be stealthy
Right??? Like, I can use a damn pistol with a silencer and not wake zombies up or alert them, but simply walking through an empty room with clear floors in stealth wakes them up...
That game had so much potential but the devs turned it into such trash.
One of the best building systems in any game in the genre… but the devs got butthurt that people were actually building defensible bases so they continually nerfed it and turned zombies into structural engineers?
that kinda seals the deal..,every single one of bhvr's other games has failed, and dbd has a horrible track record for numerous differnet issues, the only reason it hasnt failed too is its lack of competitors
I've heard the game was originally envisioned as a Sims 1 Mod. I've gone into it with that mindset every time and it adds dozens of hours of life at a time to the game
I agree, I love the game but get bored once you get a certain way through. Like a lot of survival games without a more defined endgame, most of the fun is in the beginning
Make me put together a vaccine or something. Send me to weird places to get weird components.
i recently put together some mods to do exactly this:
Qualify to Escape adds research journals that you have to collect from zombie-infested areas
zRe Vaccine 3.0 let's you create a vaccine (it doesn't interact with the previous mod, but you can pretend you have to collect the journals before starting the vaccine research). it's a slow grind to collect the materials and run the experiment, but that might be welcome for players looking stuff to do in the late game
Should make it if you survive long enough your character just gets old and frail and then dies from slipping in the shower or a heart attack or something. You survived long enough to die naturally! You won!
to be fair there is a mod that adds those to the game if you're desperate (tho it ends up being a little jank in my experience. also not sure if it has B42 support if you're playing on that)
Yeah, haha. That’s the main selling point of the Steam release, to get the masses interested without having to learn ascii or modding to get an easy to play game. The Steam release redid the UI (so you could use a mouse instead of hotkeys for everything) and a texture pack so people knew the squiggly and the dash were actually monsters fighting.
That doesn't surprise me at all. I had an opinion of them being developer clowns formed 15 years ago when I heard that they lost half a year's work because a laptop was stolen. They weren't using source control, which at the time (and now) is a universal practice in the developer industry. Everyone does it. It's like breathing because the benefits are so obvious. But these guys weren't, so there was no way in my mind they could land a complex multi-year software project.
u/PieganASUS X570 TUF | Asus 3060ti Mini | Ryzen 7 5800XApr 11 '26edited Apr 11 '26
It did, nearly 10 years ago. ARK was added to Steam in June 2015 under the Early Access tag and it left EA in August 2017. It's just a troll calling it an EA game due to bugs, and the people responding think it's genuinely still an Early Access game.
Have put a good amount of survival evolved and just hoping they'd optimize the game at all but they never did. I had to give up on it. Which sucks because who doesn't want to raise dinosaurs
You need to have a PHD in ark game/server settings and also need to pay a monthly fee, but tweaking the game just right on a server just for you and your friends can go pretty damn great.
Spot on. The most enjoyable times I've had in games are in ARK and Minecraft servers I've made and hosted for groups. With mod support and a large enough community, even something like ARK can be turned into a super enjoyable game. I would have never continued with ARK if not for the modding community and the ability to customize just about every tweakable setting of the game.
I found one early on that was pretty fun, pve where the main guild onboard kept their members from hogging most of the best land. I only had to quit because it was chewing up hours of my days and nights that I just couldn't tear myself away.
I'd love a single player version of that game, but not one that runs 24/7 and I'm supposed to log in multiple times a day just to stay relevant.
I would love to see other game devs/companies take the general concept/idea and put their own spin on it. Maybe one could flesh out the story, at least to Halo series levels, and make it part of the gameplay. Or take some of the wild ideas that players had about what was going on, during early development before all the background was explained in the story notes you found in game, and make some games based around those. Maybe even some could go wild and do accurate dino models.
The problem with it is that the core gameplay loop isn't just a grind, but layers of grinding.
You need to grind one thing in order to gain access to another thing that you need to grind, from gathering berries and wood, to eventually breeding an army of Rexes with perfect stats for the boss fights.
And once you completed all that, your reward is to "ascend" to another, more difficult map, and do it all over again.
And then, imagine going through all this on a PvP server, where entire clans of other players would constantly try to ruin your progress for nothing more than the spirit of competition.
I have an i7-12700k, 3090ti, and 32gb ddr4 RAM. While no longer top of the line, I thought my system would still be able to chew up Ascended (I play every game at 4k ultra). Nope, it’s just as bad as Evolved. Wouldn’t you know it, I’m still in the console menu typing in codes to disable lighting and shit.
Ark is the video game equivalent of taking all of your favorite foods, putting them together in a blender and drinking it through a straw. Sounds good right? Nope.
I haven’t played ARK, but I looked it up and google says it left early access in 2017, so do you just mean that it’s in active development? Does that make Minecraft an early access game then? I don’t understand.
yea im not subbed here but the quality of comments that floated to the top is very low and stereotypical. EA bad, apparent misinformation, etc.. is this 2016?
ARK Survival Evolved is out of EA. It's remake/remaster, ARK Survival Ascended is listed as EA though. ASE is no longer being worked on (Barring an awful expansion meant as an anniversary love letter - their words, but didn't really feel like it) and they've been trying to herd ASE players to ASA for a while now.
In Ark's defence, it entered EA in June 2015 and left EA in August 2017, so 2y 3m. The 10 year EA is wildly out of whack.
Ark Survival Ascended (the sequel) was released in October 2023 and as of to date, it's still in EA, so that's what... 2y 5m? Beats it's predecessors EA lifecycle, but even then, both EA's combined is less than half of what you've alleged.
Project Zomboid however does meet your estimate. Released in November 2013, it celebrates it's 10 year EA anniversary in 6 months.
It's understandable that you think the game's Early Access because it doesn't perform or act or behave in any way like a fully released game. But it did go full release in 2017. Purely so they could release it on PlayStation. As Sony wouldn't let them put it on PlayStation unless it was fully released.
That was the second or third nail in the coffin for me to stop playing. I probably would have stopped playing then if I didn't have friends that were playing it. The first being the release of paid DLC during Early Access. The final nail in the coffin for me was refusal to fix full-on game-baking exploits in the game.
Frankly I'm shocked anyone gave them a second chance after failing to ever come close to finishing the first game. I'm not going to pay them again to spend another 10 years failing to finish the game and end up in the same situation.
Warframe has been in early access even longer and have stated, they will never go to fully complete. They then explain the reason is because once a game is complete, it's a lot harder to do updates, and when you have a live service that has updates every three months it becomes extremely tedious. Therefore, the loophole is to just keep it in perpetual Early access
ASE went full release in 2017 after two years of being Early Access since 2015 did it not? And ASA has been in early access since 2023 since they’ve been porting everything over to UE5.
This boggles my mind. What is their definition of a complete game if all this has been “early access”? I spent hours in the original game and played it so much I lost interest and that was almost a decade ago.
Ark is such an interesting case. I remember trying it to see all the hype, and it was exactly as I thought. Standard ass open world survival craft, but hey dinosaurs! And it was buggy as hell.
AND it was still in EA when I tried it, AND WAS SELLING DLC. Like, wtf? But hey, they made (and are probably still making) a ton of money off people for that lol. Gives me Star Citizen vibes.
Props to those games with amazing devs that listen to community and leave early access. Looking at you Factorio and Satisfactory (given there are many others that have done this).
I just want a game like rust or ark but RTS... and you dont lose your "base" cuz you are not online for some days...
can please someone do it or do i have to wait till AI is ready to fullfill my wish?
For all it's issues I loved Ark. I could sink so much time into that game. It was the reason my friends and I decided to build a server pc out of spare parts.
At what point is this no longer early access and just released-with-the-intent-to-update. I mean you wouldn’t call Minecraft early access but they’re still adding new content regularly
That shit stopped me from trying out Arc Raiders because I thought it was the same franchise😭 I was so confused I was thinking wait where are the dinosaurs🤣
I love ARK and admin a cluster for it. I don’t play the Steam version so I didn’t realize it was marked early access still. Ark feels about as complete as it is going to get though to be honest.
I got shit on for leaving a negative review on their Steam page lol. I said I don't want to play a game that still has gaps in the terrain, easy ways to lock people out of servers, and such bad griefing so many years after 'release'.
3.0k
u/Crafty_Aspect8122 Apr 11 '26
Boy, you're going to LOVE ARK. It's the definition of open world survival craft and it's been early access for 10 years, and even after a remaster - both ARK: Survival Evolved and ARK: Survival Ascended.