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The announcement of Ark Survival Ascended came with a litany of promises and caveats, dividing gamers in the process. Confronted with the reality of major delays to Ark 2, Ark fans have been offered Ark Survival Ascended, a massive remastering effort of the original Ark Survival Evolved to tide them over. The remaster itself comes with its own caveat though, as when the remaster takes over, Ark Survival Evolved will no longer be supported, and the official servers will be no more.
The upside is that Ark Survival Ascended is going to look awesome, as the remaster will be in the Unreal 5 engine with dynamic water, interactive foliage and more. It'll also make crossplay available, including cross-platform modding, and ensures support and updates for players moving forwards, which likely wouldn't have been the case for Ark Survival Evolved. This lifeline for the future may turn out to be important, as reveals on Ark 2 so far look to be somewhat of a departure from the original, and it gives fans of the current game a chance to continue with the remaster if Ark 2 isn't to their taste.
Ark Survival Ascended PC Requirements
We don't have the minimum or recommended PC spec requirements yet, as these haven't been released by Studio Wildcard - but we can make some conservative estimates. As Ark Survival Evolved servers will be going into the long goodnight when the remaster is released, we have to assume the system demands of Ark Survival Ascended won't be too far above the already-quite-demanding-original, as that would shut out players currently playing Ark... And they wouldn't do that, would they?
The answer is that it's very unlikely they would. If we were talking about Ark 2, then absolutely those graphics are getting cranked up, and it'll be a whole new balancing act of accessibility and visuals, as that's a new game. Ark Survival Ascended however is the same game remastered, and remastering in Unreal 5 makes a lot of sense when you consider that Ark 2 is also going to be in Unreal 5. This leaves Wildcard with a single engine to support across both titles, which is much less complicated than handling two.
It will however increase the system requirements to some extent, though mainly at the higher end. Unreal 5 should bring optimisations that help balance this out, but if you're barely running the game now you may want to keep your eye on the latest reveals to get a sense of how much of an increase it'll be.
With that taken into consideration, based on what we know now here are the systems we think will be in a good place to play Ark Survival Ascended when the time comes.
Our Minimum Recommended Gaming PC for Ark Survival Ascended
We're trying to play it a little safe here, so our minimum spec PC might seem a little less minimum than normal, but if you're buying a gaming PC to play titles like Ark, odds are you're also shopping for good performance in games across the board that will hold up for a number of years, so there you go.
Our Recommended Gaming PC for Ark Survival Ascended
For a full and graphically astounding Ark Survival Ascended experience though, it's best to aim a touch higher and take advantage of all the graphical upgrades the remaster will bring.
Taking it up a few gears
If Ark in 4K sounds more like your thing, go all out with the Chillblast Pinnacle - where the combination of a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and an RTX 4090 will deliver the ultimate (Jurrasic P)Ark experience. Plus a 2TB NVMe drive, because, well it's Ark, isn't it. It's massive.
To see all our PCs recommended by game title, view our PCs by Game section.
