Ark Survival Evolved Save Game and Settings Locations on Xbox PC Game Pass
Jan 6, 2022PC GamingComments (3)
Ark, when downloaded with PC Game Pass using the Windows 10/11 Xbox app (or Windows Store) has somewhat-obscure application, settings, and save locations. It can make backing up your save games or making settings tweaks more difficult than it would be with the Steam or Epic versions.
The save games are in a folder called wgs, which can found at this location:
Inside that folder are several folders and files with long random names. They are not named well like the Steam/Epic versions. This is likely due to the nature of the PC Game Pass version of Ark, which is a UWP application and probably uses the UWP API for handling save data.
When backing up your save game, be sure to back up the full wgs folder. Also note that usually your save game data will get automatically synced to your Microsoft account. You can, however, backup your save folder, delete the game data in the game (which deletes it in your Microsoft account), then later put the backed up wgs folder back, and it will resync.
Are save games transferable between Game Pass and Steam/Epic versions? As best I can tell, no. It appears that the Game Pass version of Ark uses the UWP API for saving game data, while the Steam/Epic version use something else, probably a standard save data implementation from Unreal Engine (though I am not very knowledgeable about UE).
In a similar location, the settings files are located here:
Unlike the save games, these luckily appear to use the same format as the Steam/Epic versions, and GameUserSettings.ini is there and can be edited just the same.
Save Game
The save games are in a folder called wgs, which can found at this location:
C:\Users\{YOUR_USER_NAME}\AppData\Local\Packages\StudioWildcard.4558480580BB9_1w2mm55455e38\SystemAppData\wgs\
Inside that folder are several folders and files with long random names. They are not named well like the Steam/Epic versions. This is likely due to the nature of the PC Game Pass version of Ark, which is a UWP application and probably uses the UWP API for handling save data.
When backing up your save game, be sure to back up the full wgs folder. Also note that usually your save game data will get automatically synced to your Microsoft account. You can, however, backup your save folder, delete the game data in the game (which deletes it in your Microsoft account), then later put the backed up wgs folder back, and it will resync.
Are save games transferable between Game Pass and Steam/Epic versions? As best I can tell, no. It appears that the Game Pass version of Ark uses the UWP API for saving game data, while the Steam/Epic version use something else, probably a standard save data implementation from Unreal Engine (though I am not very knowledgeable about UE).
Settings
In a similar location, the settings files are located here:
C:\Users\{YOUR_USER_NAME}\AppData\Local\Packages\StudioWildcard.4558480580BB9_1w2mm55455e38\LocalState\Saved\UWPConfig\UWP
Unlike the save games, these luckily appear to use the same format as the Steam/Epic versions, and GameUserSettings.ini is there and can be edited just the same.