Fans Yell Shenanigans at ATLAS, Files Reveal it was an Expansion for ARK: Survival Evolved

ARK: Survival Evolved is one of the most popular survival games available, with an active player count of 50,000 throughout 2018 on PC and launching in 2017 with 9 million players who've tried the game during its 2-year early access period. So when the developers of this acclaimed title revealed their next project at The Game Awards 2018, ATLAS, fans were excited about this pirate-themed survival game but not anymore.

The game was supposed to launch on December 13th but was delayed 6 days to December 19th. Instead of following through with the countdown on the game's official site players had to wait additional time for an extended trailer that currently has 10K dislikes and 5.7K likes on YouTube. In addition, the developers confirmed that the game was delayed again from December 19th to December 21st.

The invites will continue to go out over the night and tomorrow as we get closer to launch and when we're satisfied, and assuming all our other ducks are in order we'll be officially releasing the title onto Steam Early Access.

— ATLAS (@sailtheatlas) December 21, 2018

The game would be delayed again before finally launching on December 23nd to a discounted price.

We're still in the process of deploying our new network and expect to have our Official Servers online in approximately 30 minutes

— ATLAS (@sailtheatlas) December 22, 2018

Pathfinders, we've just pushed a potential fix for the server connection issues we were seeing. Please restart your steam clients to download the latest version (v3) and reconnect to Official Servers!

— ATLAS (@sailtheatlas) December 23, 2018

Official Server Maintenance: 1:30 PM EST

The Official Server network will go offline/enter a debug state for 3 - 4 hours of maintenance while we work on resolving connection, stability, performance issues. We will update you with more info as necessary.

— ATLAS (@sailtheatlas) December 23, 2018

Pathfinders, the Official Server Maintenance has now been pushed back to 2:30 PM EST.

We'll keep you posted should there be any more changes. We expect it to last a few hours, hopefully no more than 4.

Thanks

— ATLAS (@sailtheatlas) December 23, 2018

ATLAS is now available on the Steam Store:https://t.co/Pa1t03EBGy

We're still working on deploying our Official Servers and getting this small update out to users, so hang tight!#playATLAS

— ATLAS (@sailtheatlas) December 22, 2018

Issues started sprouting up again with negative reviews covering the ATLAS Steam page. Many have noted that the game resembles ARK: Survival Evolved with many users discovering how to open the ARK: Survival Evolved's menu using a series of commands. By scrolling down to an invisible menu players can access this menu that allows players to select DLC from ARK: Survival Evolved one of which includes a DLC selection titled "OCEAN". When selected you're taken to the ATLAS character creation menu which has led many to believe that ATLAS was an expansion for  ARK: Survival Evolved but has been reskinned and sold as its own game.

Gamers have noted that the game functions poorly and resembles ARK: Survival Evolved and uses similar systems found from the game. As of now, ATLAS  sits at "Mostly Negative" with over 7K reviews.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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