Studio Wildcard, the developer behind Ark: Survival Ascended, has announced a delay in the release of the enhanced expansion for the dinosaur survival remaster, The Center. The delay comes just days before its scheduled release on February 28th.
Ark: Survival Ascended, a controversial full-price remaster of Ark: Survival Evolved using Unreal Engine 5, has faced numerous delays since its announcement last year.
Initially planned for August, the remaster’s launch was pushed to October for PC, with the Xbox Series X/S version delayed to mid-November and the PS5 release following later. Similarly, the expansion remasters, originally slated to launch alongside the base game, have faced multiple delays.
In January, Wildcard announced that the Scorched Earth expansion remaster, initially delayed to December 2023 and then to March 2024, would now be released in April. Additionally, the remasters for the Aberration and Ragnarok maps, previously delayed to “Q1 2024,” were rescheduled for July and September 2024, respectively.
Amidst these changes, there was a glimmer of hope when the enhanced version of Ark’s The Center map was slated for release a few months earlier than expected in December. However, the release date for The Center has now been postponed again.
In a community update shared over the weekend, Wildcard explained the decision to delay The Center, stating that it wasn’t meeting the quality standards they require. The development partners working on The Center need more time to ensure it meets both their and the players’ expectations.
Despite the delay of The Center’s remaster without a revised launch date, Wildcard confirmed that they will still release the Gigantoraptor, a new dinosaur originally intended to coincide with The Center’s remaster, in an update on February 28th.
The Scorched Earth remaster, which will be free to owners of Ark: Survival Ascended, like all other world expansions released for the previous version of Ark, remains on track for an April launch. It will be accompanied by the new paid DLC, the Frontier Adventure Pack, featuring cowboy-inspired clothing, buildable trains, and the “floating fortress” Oasisaur.
While Ark: Survival Ascended continues to face challenges with performance issues, bugs, crashes, server problems, and cheating complaints since its launch, some players have still enjoyed their time with the remaster’s updated The Island map. However, whether Wildcard can address these issues while managing an expanding roadmap of expansion remasters and new paid DLC remains uncertain.
