ARK Remaster responds to fan criticism with surprise price hike

On the outside, ARK has been pretty quiet - but for those still chasing those dino-led thrills before the launch of Exoprimal, there's drama.

Though the sequel is (technically) on the way starring Vin Diesel, a bizarre casting choice if ever we've seen one, there's still plenty of scrapping between fans and devs online as it seems that Studio Wildcard have been fumbling the bag with a series of big delays, including one for ARK 2 that has pushed it back to next year.

But now, they've made an absurd change to the existing game that has fans seething.

ARK: Survival Ascended has hiked its price

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The ARK community were excited to discover that ARK: Survival Ascended was on its way, a remaster of the original ARK: Survival Evolved that promised to improve the game - but now that we know that players need to pay extra for it and that Survival Evolved's servers are being shut down, fans are furious.

They've been up in arms about having to pay $49.99 for the game they've already been paying - and for some reason, Studio Wildcard has just bumped that price to $59.99.

Studio Wildcard has tried to address this change - but they haven't done a very good job of it.

Studio Wildcard responds to Survival Ascended scandal

A new blog post on the game's Steam page has revealed the motives of ARK's team, but hasn't exactly softened the blow for players who are having to buy a new game, which is suddenly more expensive, and no longer includes the upcoming ARK 2 as promised.

"We weren’t trying to mislead you with earlier comments; our plans and overall intentions changed," the blog post reads.

"So you're probably asking, why don’t we make these upgrades to the original ARK: Survival Evolved (ASE)? Frankly, it would not be viable. Many of the changes we’re making in ARK: Survival Ascended will touch a lot of aspects of the game; it’ll invalidate save data, some mods may not be functional, some things may not play the same way as they did before, and we didn’t want to change that experience for those who prefer it or are unable to upgrade."

This is a baffling action to take for a game developer, and with a vague blog post failing to justify its motives, fans aren't any happier. It's intense in Camp ARK, to say the least.