How to roll back Ark Survival Evolved to pre-Aquatica version on Steam

ARK Survival Evolved’s Aquatica update, as it turns out, was pretty terrible, and players want to rollback to a pre-Aquatica state. It’s fascinating to see a game launch with an Overwhelmingly Negative on Steam, but this DLC certainly seemed to manage it. Several days after the launch it still sits at Overwhelmingly Negative, but thankfully, Studio Wildcard have provided a way to go back to the pre-Aquatica version of the game, and it’s not too hard to do.

There’s no telling how long it will take for the Aquatica DLC to be fixed, so for now, it’s advisable to roll back to a previous version of ARK Survival Evolved, a pre-Aquatica version. Here’s how you can do that on Steam right now.

How to easily roll back ARK Survival Evolved to the pre-Aquatica state on Steam

Thankfully, the steps to roll back ARK Survival Evolved to a pre-Aquatica state is remarkably simple. Studio Wildcard set up a Beta for people to use, which will roll the game back, if you just follow the steps below:

Unfortunately, the Aquatica update didn't quite go as planned, but you can thankfully, go back to the before-times (Image via Valve)

Steps to rollback to pre-Aquatica

Right click ARK: Survival Evolved on Steam
Select Properties
Select the Betas tab
Select Beta Participation dropdown
Select preaquatica - ASE: Pre-Aquatica

This may require you to reinstall the game, so be aware of that as well. In general, for games like this, it may be advisable to have a backup of the installed files made, before major DLC drops and updates like this. That could potentially help deal with issues like Aquatica messing everything up the way it did. Players who have those backups, after rolling back, likely will have an easier time getting set up again.

In the event you have issues with either missing DLC, or issues installing the game, you might want to verify the game’s files. This is also done in the ARK Survival Evolved properties, but instead of rolling back to pre-Aquatica in the Betas tab, go to Installed Files tab. Then, click Verify Integrity of game files.

Hopefully, you have a save, or a backup, from before the Aquatica update. That would ensure that there is no lost content, or weird issues that come from having a save file that has come into contact with the disastrous Aquatica update.

Check out our other ARK guides and features

About the author

Jason is an Esports and Gaming journalist at Sportskeeda holding an amazing 11 years of experience under his belt. Having put out 4000-plus articles and amassing over 12 million reads for Sportskeeda, he is among the company’s most experienced writers. Jason holds a Bachelor's degree in English from UNC Pembroke and was inspired to become a gaming journalist very early on in life after reading Nintendo Power.

Jason is a jack of all trades when it comes to gaming journalism. He’s a key writer in Sportskeeda's MMO department, but he also likes to help out in other categories, like streamers, RPG, card games, and whatever else is needed. A solo gamer at heart, Jason's favorite titles include Earthbound and Dragon Warrior.

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Edited by Jason Parker