Ark: Survival Ascended will launch on Xbox today - targeting an ‘early December’ PS5 release

A dinosaur in Ark: Survival Ascended.
(Image credit: Studio Wildcard / Grove Street Games)

Dinosaur fans on Xbox Series X|S, the wait is almost over. It’s been confirmed that Ark: Survival Ascended will launch on Microsoft’s current-gen consoles later today after being hit with a last-minute delay ahead of its intended release last week. 

In a new statement posted to Twitter last night (November 20), the official Ark: Survival Ascended account wrote: “We appreciate everyone’s continued support and understanding as we navigated the certification process for Ark: Survival Ascended on Xbox. We know it’s been a long wait, but we’re thrilled to finally confirm that the launch date has been set for this Tuesday, November 21, at 9am Pacific.”

The survival game was supposed to launch last Tuesday (November 14) on Xbox Series X|S, but the day before that, it was announced that it was still going through the certification process, with the release expected for later that week. Then, on November 16, it was revealed that the process had “yielded some unexpected issues.”

Amongst all this, the release date for the PS5 version has remained relatively vague. In previous correspondence, it was stated that it was targeting a release later this month, but the latest tweet has confirmed that it’s “encountered some issues which will require additional time.” As a result, the developers now anticipate the launch to arrive in early December. 

“We’re working diligently to bring you the best possible cross-platform experience, and we appreciate your patience and understanding,” the statement reads. “We’ll continue to provide updates on the PlayStation release as we make progress.”

Back to the Xbox version, fans can expect the game to launch at 12pm ET / 9am PT/ 5pm GMT / 4am AEDT today. Previously, the developers promised that official mode-specific servers with boosted rates would be available to let new players catch up to those who’ve been playing the early-access PC version, and while these will be available eventually, players will have to wait for “a few hours” after launch.

Black Friday is this week, and if you want to keep up with the best Black Friday gaming deals, be sure to check out our roundups of Black Friday Xbox Series X deals and Black Friday PS5 deals. 

Catherine Lewis
News Writer, TechRadar Gaming

Catherine is a News Writer for TechRadar Gaming. Armed with a journalism degree from The University of Sheffield, she was sucked into the games media industry after spending far too much time on her university newspaper writing about Pokémon and cool indie games, and realising that was a very cool job, actually. She previously spent 19 months working at GAMINGbible as a full-time journalist. She loves all things Nintendo, and will never stop talking about Xenoblade Chronicles.