ARK: Survival Ascended guides & lore

What ARK: Survival Ascended is

ARK: Survival Ascended (ASA) is a ground-up remake of 2015’s ARK: Survival Evolved, rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5 by Studio Wildcard with Grove Street Games. Steam highlights fully dynamic Lumen lighting, Nanite mesh streaming, a dynamic-water system and physical foliage. It is sold separately from the original, at a list price of $44.99, and Steam still marks it as Early Access. The PC version launched on Steam on 25 October 2023, followed by Xbox Series X|S on 21 November and PS5 on 30 November 2023. The ARK Wiki lists an Epic Games Store release on 22 October 2025. Steam’s minimum PC requirements are demanding: 16 GB of RAM, 180 GB of storage and an SSD.

Platforms and modes

• Platforms: Windows PC (Steam, and per the ARK Wiki the Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X|S and PS5. There is no Mac or Linux version on Steam.
• Modes: single-player, online co-op, PvE and PvP, plus split-screen and LAN options and cross-platform multiplayer, according to Steam’s feature list.
• Extras: full controller support, Steam Remote Play Together, an included level editor and 16 supported languages (English has full audio).

The core loop

You wake on an island with nothing, harvest wood and stone, craft tools, build shelter and learn to tame creatures. Taming is the heart of the game: some animals are knocked out and fed, others are befriended passively, trapped or won over through minigames, and tamed creatures can be levelled, bred, imprinted and ridden. Tribes pool bases and animals, and multiplayer runs from single-player and co-op through PvE and PvP servers, with cross-platform play across PC and consoles. Bosses await on the story maps and reward the preparation that taming and building demand, which is the thread running through the guides below. A dedicated in-game browser now also lets players download mods across platforms.

Maps and expansions

Steam’s description says ASA includes access to all of ARK’s worlds as they are remastered. The table lists the Steam DLC entries and when each arrived.

“None listed” means Steam shows no separate price for that entry. Check the store page before buying, as sales and bundles change.

Remaster, not sequel

ASA keeps the original’s systems but rebuilds the art, the maps and many of the interfaces, and adds quality-of-life features such as wild babies, a tracking system, photo mode and a new map. It also draws creatures from beyond the original: the Helicoprion, for example, arrived in August 2025 from the community ARK: Additions mod. ARK 2, a separate sequel, has been delayed repeatedly; Lost Colony is positioned by the studio as the story bridge between Extinction and that game.

Who it suits

ASA rewards patience. If you enjoy long-term projects, such as breeding a perfect Rex, designing a base or preparing an arsenal for a boss, it offers more depth than almost any survival game. If you want a short, guided adventure, the first hours will feel slow and the learning curve steep, which is why practical guides matter so much here.

How this hub is organised

• Build: base and trap construction, templates and organisation.
• Taming: step-by-step guides for the creatures in our video series.
• Boss fights: preparation and strategy for the big encounters.
• Lore: articles on the real animals and the in-game story behind them, starting at the story behind ARK.

Every guide pairs a written walkthrough with a video from Raconin’s YouTube channel, so you can read the plan first and then watch it done.