Okay... ARK Survival Ascended. Definitely one of the games of all time. Very unique gameplay, compelling lore, yet riddled with controversy, ridiculous marketing, laced with shareholder and publisher greed, and still plagued by a flawed development cycle.

--- The Good:
- Graphically this is a FAITHFUL REMASTER of our beloved ARK Survival Evolved. With some exceptions, the artstyle has been taken and overhauled to a level never thought possible while still preserving much of the original atmosphere and asthetics.
- After over 8 years... server stability and netcode has finally been fixed... no more getting stuck on "Lost/Timed Out Connection to Host" screens. No more minute-long loading screens when connecting to modded servers. Best of all? No more failed hit-registration just because you can't maintain a stable 20 ping all day,
- Quality of life improvements, oh my! No more skin clutter. MASSIVE improvements to building and UI readability. The game even lets us hop right back into the previously-joined session immediately from the menu. And more.
- Improvements to all the wild dinosaurs, whether it be their heavily increased color variety, improved AI, or even the wild baby dinosaur spawns, a HEAVILY requested feature in the game all culminating into a much more fun experience. It truly feels like a "definitive edition".
- Integrations of previously community-made content. We're talking the fact they're ADDING stuff from certain mods like ARK Additions to the game because they fit so well. That is something that your modding community LOVES and what keeps the game alive.
- Crossplatform - one of the most heavily sought-after features (even if I think it isn't necessary) has finally made it into the game. We can now all die to raptors together, regardless of platform difference!
- Decent mod support - while not as robust as classic ARK the addition of an ingame mod manager (and TONS of convincing on Microsoft's end) was the only reason they got some of the mods to work cross-platform as well.

--- The Bad:
- OPTIMIZATION... or lack thereof. Can I just ask a burning question? What kind of god computer did Studio Wildcard have to run this game on to get the footage for the trailers?
It's playable... if you're willing to either endure low, or completely inconsistent FPS and or turn literally every setting down. That's how I played Ark to begin with, but this game truly brought my system to it's knees. Where I thought games like Monster Hunter Wilds ran badly, ASA utterly CHUGS. It looks pretty, Lumen and Nanite are incredible, but the decision to go for Unreal Engine 5 irks me, all this new tech is known for being demanding and if it doesn't run well on the hardware it's designed for, the pretty graphics are meaningless. Needs optimization fixes IMMEDIATELY. Reality is you NEED a 30 series card or better to even have a CHANCE of playing this game in 1080p, 40 series recommended as this game can at least make use of new GPU features. This is, assuming you're lucky enough to have one and you're willing to endure smeary fake frames. Yeah, you can use the console to turn off things like clouds as well as Lumen, but why aren't these just options in the graphics settings?
- Random crashes still happen here and there despite it being 2 years since release. In personal experience, most of my crashes were seemingly related to the water physics. Thankfully, GPU driver updates seem to have fixed this, but crashes still happen from time to time.

--- The Ugly:
- Publisher Controversy: okay, we all know the whole fiasco with ASE getting broken, whether this is the fault of the publisher or Studio Wildcard is not is beyond this review's scope. What I'm going to discuss ACTUALLY affects this game (see below).
- Pay to Win: I'll give you a TLDR. This is a problem for Official PvP and regular servers. Pay to win content SUCKS. Why on EARTH should I be punished that heavily just because I couldn't afford the "Fantastic Tames"? Yeah, Fantastic for your Official Server target audience (TEA and other Chinese mega-tribes), DEVASTATING for your majority playerbase. I pay for expansions if they bring meaningful content into the game, but not like this, and especially not standalone content. My biggest issue? These tames spawn on ALL maps and you're forced to OWN the DLC to tame it. Meaning you're locked out if you don't pay. Also, Lost Colony, you get the Skill Tree to grant you a whole HOST of various things and even active abilities. Yeah, that is unhealthy for the game. It wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't affecting the regular maps, too.
- Nitrado. Having played on their servers before, they are are notorious for being unstable and way overpriced. 30 dollars a MONTH for a 10 slot server that I can't even maintain 60 ping on despite it being within SPITTING distance of me, and they won't let me make backups of my save. NO THANKS. I'll go through the so-called 'inconvenience and hassle' of hosting my own.

--- Final Verdict:
Alright... so, let's take a step back... ARK Survival Ascended has the chance to be a fantastic remake, and, in 99 percent of respects, it is. I do greatly appreciate Wildcard's passion for their community, having spoken to some of them myself, their dev team is full of amazing people who are extremely dedicated to the lifespan of this game, it brings me back. BUT... even as someone who has played ARK since December 2015, I'm not going to sugar-coat and start glazing. Wildcard should have seen the warning signs before they dug themselves into this ditch when they took the deals with Snail Games and Nitrado years ago - now they reap the community backlash. Now, is there still enjoyment to be had if you just play the game of "Ignorance is bliss", zone out of all the drama, find a good server or just host your own? Thankfully... yes. In fact, this game didn't release with the expansions, which feels like a blessing in disguise (And the fact I didn't have to pay for them a second time was the ONLY REASON I bought this remaster). However, Snail Games forces the release of arguably pay to win DLC, and Nitrado killed community servers that are not run on privately owned hardware like my own... also... so-called "premium" (paid) mods? You do realize that money isn't going to the mod creators, right? Are the publishers really trying that hard to milk the IP dry?

Studio Wildcard, YOU CAN STILL SALVAGE WHAT IS LEFT! PLEASE listen to your community and see why your content creators are all leaving. Hear your players, fix your game. Nobody wants to see this game fail. It goes beyond optimization this time, and we should all PRAY that Snail Games and Nitrado go under sooner or later and Wildcard can have some actual autonomy again like they did 10 years ago.

Hopefully someone high up is listening and maybe even reading this review. I'd rather have at least some optimism rather than pessimism, considering this is still the only game of it's type, and me and the entire community ultimately want what is best. Fix the optimization, stop releasing P2W content, abandon your exclusivity deals so your unofficial server community can thrive again, and just stop with the paid mod nonsense.
Otherwise, my review will continue to stay negative and I will say that people should very much steer clear outside of an incredibly deep sale or if they don't own the original title.