The original ARK Survival Evolved on Nintendo Switch was a complete mess and throughly unoptimised for the platform. The team recognise this and have been working with a third party to revamp the overall experience for Nintendo Switch owners with new and improved visuals, a better frame rate, resolution, plus a host of other changes. If you own the original ARK game on Switch you can download the new and improved experience for free, which sort of makes up for the terrible original. There is only one bit of bad news as the multiplayer servers aren’t live. The team says that a patch for this is in submission with Nintendo and they are just awaiting approval from the company. To make up for the lost time there will be multiple boosted rate weekends when the patch goes live. You can give the game a whirl here.
Free ARK: Ultimate Survivor Edition upgrade for Switch available
Hey@Sickr, do you know if this free update will be for digital downloads only, or include physical purchases as well? Thanks!
This is a free update for digital and physical owners. But you can pay $29.99 and get all the expansions if you want. I bought it on day 1 as I wanted to support the devs for fixing their game and then giving it to users for free. And then also releasing the DLC. I bought the ultimate version (as I didn’t own ark b4) and it was $49.99. But they have DLC that will be coming till well into 2023!
Nice! It looks like the only option I have is to purchase the upgrade for 39.99, I’ll check again but I didn’t see a 30$ option
so when is it free? cus rn i only see it for money in the shop and my ark updated but nothing changed
I’m starting to think from forums I’ve read online, that the free switch update is just the overhaul graphics improvement, and does not include anything in regards to DLC.
Yes, the free upgrade does not include any additional DLC.
I have been trying to figure out how to access the free upgrade as well. I purchased the original game on Switch, but today when I checked the eShop the only option I have for the updated game is to pay.
I did have a similar experience with another game update like this (can’t recall the game), in that I had to agree I would pay in the eShop and then it charged me $0 when I confirmed payment. I won’t be trying that until I have confirmation though.
I am very interested in how this plays out. I have all the Ark content on Nvidia shield TV through the Steam store, and I was very angry that I purchased this for my kids and only got the original version of Ark, with the island as the only map for $59 if I remember correctly. I stopped buying digital content from Nintendo because of being deceived into believing we were getting the complete game for such a high price. No one warned us that it was the completely buggy original content, with no explanations in the description before paying the same price as other systems that get everything, and updated. I would have waited until now had I known. I’m thrilled to see it’s finally a complete game……kind of?
Did you know that over half the map packs are free on Steam and other consoles because they are “User created” content? So I expect to be getting them free on switch. If $39 unlocks ALL the maps then that ACTUALLY is MORE than a great deal! This will redeem them in my eyes. I paid much more for all the maps Wildcard created themselves. If memory serves me, I believe there are 10 maps total now and Wildcard actually only made 4 of them… The rest were made by people like me and you! This is why they were free I imagine, to avoid future legal issues.
I’m also hoping they release the ability to use MODS… You think you enjoy Ark now? Wait until you can use MODS!
Oops, edit the price from $39 to $29 for expansions in that comment… My thumb gets a little crazy on the tiny keyboard sometimes.