The most recent update broke the game for me. Sever list is empty on official and non dedicated and it crashes even more now.Review will stay negative till its fixed.

I have 2700 hours in SE, Like many other reviews I love Ark but don't care for the publisher.
My desktop PC specs are:
I9 9900k
64 gigs ddr5 Ram
Msi GTX 2080 graphics card
1TB Samsung NVME Hard Drive
I get 60-80 fps on Medium settings


My gaming laptop specs:
i7-10750H CPU
8 gigs ddr5 Ram
GTX 1660
8 gigs of Ram
500 gig SSD

Even with low settings and using the cloud command the game loads up but the frames are unstable even in overclocking mode enabled it's unplayable.

The game itself is beautiful even on the Ark SA lowest settings Ark SE can't touch this game on it's higest settings

The game itself has some bugs and the optimization isn't good. That being said I thought the game would release in a much worse state. Is the game worth $40 depends on how much you love Ark. Im happy so far with the game and the quality of life changes they made to the map and game but I didnt buy it. It was given to me by my Cousin.
Im basing this review on just this game and not any of the drama and cash grab antics that are being done by Nitrado and wildcard. The game is good and worth a play through but isn't worth $40 for returning players in its current state.

Its worth knowing that this game was originally intended to be a free upgrade for all that owned the original game and DLC but they backed out and here we are with an unfinished game for over $40. Also Nitrado is the only one that can host a server for the game, but you can now host a server on your private pc, something they originally blocked you from doing.

If you love Ark the game is a nice upgrade graphic wise but you need a good pc and graphics card to be able to run it.