Studio Wildcard is scrapping the Ark Respawned bundle following community backlash

Ark has been the talk of the town as of late, as developer Studio Wildcard both announced that Ark 2 would be delayed until late 2024, and that it would be changing the way it offered Ark: Survival Evolved going forward, all as part of a new Respawned Bundle that attempted to bundle the soon to be updated original that will be going by Ark: Survival Ascended instead and the sequel all together. This didn't go down well with fans at all.

There has been a huge amount of backlash from the community, which has already led the developer to walk back its plans with the Respawned bundle. As noted in a recent blog post, Studio Wildcard states:

"First things first, we are scrapping the ARK Respawned Bundle. Our intention behind this was to provide a package where you essentially got two products for the price of one. In hindsight, not the best move. Our bad; we recognize how combining ARK Survival Ascended with ARK 2 and requiring further DLC upgrades wasn't optimal, especially since you wouldn't be able to judge ARK 2 as no gameplay or content would be available yet."

As for what it intends to do next, the developer will now be selling the Ark: Survival Ascended edition (which is solely for PC and current-gen consoles) as a standalone package, with this including all of the DLC coming for the game until Q2 2024. Ark 2 will also then be sold separately when it debuts next year.

The developer also explained a little bit about why the Survival Ascended edition isn't a free upgrade, as are many new-gen updates.

"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."

Will you be picking up Ark: Survival Ascended all the same?