Ark: Survival Evolved's Aquatica expansion has had a controversial history, and its launch on July 15 has caused more significant problems than anyone likely anticipated. While most of the Ark focus is on Ark: Survival Ascended and the long-gestating Ark 2 these days, Aquatica is a new update to the original version of the game. Ever since its first AI-generated trailer, however, the outsourced addition has been subject to criticism and concern from the Ark community.
Upon its release, Aquatica started causing problems with the majority of the game's mods, leading to a rapid drop in review scores and player counts, as noted by Reddit user Final-Neighborhood52. A title declaring "They killed Ark in less than a day!" accompanies a photo of less than 8,000 players in-game, a significant drop from numbers that routinely stay above 20,000. A Steam update has since apologized for the issue and provided instructions to access a public pre-Aquatica branch, which should avoid the issues caused by the DLC.
Many Ark: Survival Evolved players have an eight-year history with the game, so sudden compatibility issues can pose a significant threat to long-term progress and investment. With mods installed, players...
