Ark: Survival gets paid DLC while still Early Access

The developers of the successful pre-release game Ark: Survival Evolved have generated a controversy amongst their many fans by announcing a paid DLC offering while the game remains an unfinished Early Access title.

Fans of Ark: Survival Evolved have been disappointed by Studio Wildcard’s decision to release the Scorched Earth expansion, which features new dinosaurs, items and conditions in six desert landscape maps. The subsequent £15 price tag has had gamers wonder why the developers are releasing paid additional content before the full base game is even released.

Indeed, the displeasure among the fan community has been strong enough to knock the title’s Steam review score from an average of mostly positive down to mostly negative in recent reviews. This will likely cause some concern in the Studio Wildcard camp, considering the fact that Ark has enjoyed a steady and highly placed career in Steam’s sales charts.

One Steam user said: “[Ark: Survival Evolved] started off as a shining example of how to do Early Access. Ended up a complete disaster after the developer went off on adventures of making [Survival of the Fittest], console versions and paid expansion while still in Early Access! No wonder the game is so behind schedule.”

Virtually all of the recent reviews of the game, in the aftermath of the release of Scorched Earth, are highly negative and express a great disappointment in Studio Wildcard’s paid DLC. Many of these reviewers were posted by gamers with significant lengths of time invested in the game – many in the hundreds, one totalling more than 1800 hours.

Despite the displeasure in their approach to the DLC, Studio Wildcard are confident about that quality of the content in the new content. “All of us at Wildcard are tremendously excited to see how these new features alter the dynamics of the long-term Arkmetagame,” the firm said.

Related Topics: Ark: Survival Evolved, Studio Wildcard

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