ARK: Survival Ascended, a new version of Studio Wildcard’s survival hit, is off to a strong start on Steam after its Early Access release on October 26. Plus, there were some interesting shifts in the top 20 highest-grossing titles on the store.
ARK: Survival Ascended
Counter-Strike 2 remained the top-grossing game on Steam globally for the week of October 24-31. ARK: Survival Ascended debuted at #2, making it the top premium title on the platform by gross revenue.
Interestingly, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered climbed 83 places to land in the top 10, with Miles Morales re-entering the chart at #14. This is largely due to Sony discounting the games following the sequel’s launch on PlayStation 5.
Red Dead Redemption 2 also jumped 79 places thanks to its 60% discount. Another title worth mentioning this week is Love Is All Around, a full-motion interactive dating sim from Chinese studio intiny, which jumped 22 spots after its launch on October 18.
Here are the top 10 highest-grossing games on Steam for the week of October 24-31 (excluding F2P titles and Steam Deck):
- ARK: Survival Ascended (new entry)
- Cities: Skylines II
- EA Sports FC 24
- Baldur’s Gate 3 (↓1)
- Call of Duty (↓1)
- Love is All Around (↑22)
- Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered (↑83)
- Red Dead Redemption 2 (↑79)
- Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (new entry)
- Euro Truck Simulator 2 (↓5)
Top 20 highest-grossing products on Steam, including F2P titles, for the week of October 24-31 (via SteamDB)
Branded as the next-gen remastered version of Ark: Survival Evolved, Survival Ascended came out in Early Access on October 26. It features upgraded graphics and other visual and gameplay tweaks thanks to its move to Unreal Engine 5, as well as some quality-of-life improvements.
According to SteamDB, the game peaked at 98,047 concurrent players over the weekend. Despite a strong debut, it currently holds a “Mixed” rating on Steam, with only 53% of more than 17,000 user reviews being positive.
Many players server and performance issues, including crashes. Some also say that ARK: Survival Ascended in its current state is a bleak shadow of the original game. Plus, Studio Wildcard recently shut down the official PvP servers for Survival Evolved to focus on the development of the upgraded version (and eventually on ARK 2 that is expected to come out next year).