Player with an extensive 35,000 hours in Ark: Survival Evolved voices disappointment, pleading for a refund on Steam: 'What's the process for getting a refund?!'
In the gaming world, the latest expansion for Ark: Survival Evolved, the Aquatica DLC, has been causing a significant stir among players since its release in July 2025. The update, developed by Studio Wildcard and Snail Games, has resulted in a multitude of problems affecting mods, server settings, and configuration files, effectively "breaking" the game for many players and servers.
The key issues include nearly all existing mods failing, making unofficial modded servers unplayable and disrupting long-term player progress and investment. This mod breakage is suspected to stem from game memory and shader optimizations included in the update, which conflict with how mods operate.
Players have reported a range of other problems, including corrupted save files, game settings resets, performance and stability issues, and texture glitches. Some players even spawned into empty maps or "blank voids," indicating severe loading or rendering errors. Even those who did not purchase the Aquatica DLC experienced disruptions affecting the base game, suggesting that the update's issues were pervasive rather than isolated to DLC content.
In response to the widespread issues, the developers have taken emergency measures. They released a public pre-Aquatica beta branch on Steam, allowing players to revert to the previous stable version before the problematic update. This helps those impacted regain access to working mods and stable gameplay temporarily.
Daily patches have been issued to fix dinosaur status bars, missing textures, collision problems, and boost performance to stabilize the game. The developers have also maintained transparency with the community by communicating about fixes and acknowledging the severity of the issues openly.
However, many players remain frustrated as full resolution is pending. Christopher Livingston, a writer for PC Gamer, expressed his discontent, stating, "The issues in Ark: Survival Evolved and the lack of a solution, coupled with what appears to be developer greed, is disheartening." The Aquatica DLC is currently rated as "Overwhelmingly Negative" on Steam, with only 12% of its reviews being positive.
As players continue to demand refunds and express their dissatisfaction, the developers are working diligently to address the mod compatibility problems. It remains to be seen how they will resolve the issues and restore player trust in the beloved survival game.
While the Aquatica DLC has been a source of excitement for many players, it has also brought forth numerous technical issues, such as the incompatibility of mods and the "breaking" of gameplay for several servers. These problems have led to frustration and calls for refunds among the gaming community. Despite the developers' efforts to fix the issues through patches and transparency, players continue to experience various glitches, and the DLC's overall rating on Steam remains poor. The hope is that the developers can resolve these problems swiftly and restore trust in the popular game, Ark: Survival Evolved. The resolve to these challenges could set a new record for successful problem-solving in the realm of entertainment technology and gaming.
