Ark Survival Ascended has had its fair share of controversy, from players concerned about its poor performance to others wondering why the remaster wasn’t simply a free upgrade for those of us who already own the original, Survival Evolved. Despite its mixed reviews, the early-access game still harbors a dedicated community that looks forward to updates. Studio Wildcard’s most recent change has the fanbase divided again though, this time over anti-cheating measures and PC crossplay.
If you’re an Ark Survival Ascended player or are like me, a fan of its less shiny predecessor, then you know about the survival game series’ shaky history with anti-cheat software. We’ve all had our fair share of server issues or other BattlEye-related problems, but this recent one seems to be PC-specific. In particular, it affects Windows client users.
According to various instances of recent player feedback, both on social media and forums such as the discussion board on Steam, cheating has been causing some serious issues in-game. From speed to wall-hacking, all of the classic Ark cheats we know and don’t love are rampant. Studio Wildcard now says in its official response on the matter that it has made the “difficult” decision to disable Windows clients from joining official crossplay PvP servers.
The change is temporary, and will only remain in place while the team works with Microsoft and BattlEye to fully “implement robust anti-cheat measures for the Windows version of the game.” This should last until “early next week,” when the developer expects it can bring crossplay PvP server functionality back into place for Windows client users.
Reactions seem mixed, with some fans voicing their disapproval over how fair the change is when Steam players still have access to those same servers. Other replies show that the community is simply excited to see less cheating in-game. Hopefully, the dev will take action like this in the future for other highly reported issues, like the Ark Survival Ascended PC performance problems.
Until then, I’ll just be here pouring hundreds of more hours into the original Ark and playing through my other all-time favorite dinosaur games. If you’re also waiting for Survival Ascended updates and need something else to do in the meantime, you can browse through a few of these great building games. Base-building is one of the things I love most about Ark.
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