ARK: Survival Evolved (2016)
A multiplayer first-person survival game set in a world populated by dinosaurs.
First released
Dec 6, 2016
Franchises
ARK
Developed by
Studio Wildcard, Virtual Basement LLC, Grove Street Games
Published by
Studio Wildcard, Reverb Communications Inc.
Platforms
Mac, PC, iPhone, Android, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Linux, Nintendo Switch
Genres
Action-Adventure
Themes
Prehistoric
Rating
ESRB: T
Releases
- NSW - ARK: Survival Evolved United States
- PC - ARK: Survival Evolved United States
- PS4 - ARK: Survival Evolved United States
Community reviews
Boring, repetitive and pointless in my opinion
Ark: Survival Evolved is one of those sandbox games like The Forest, Atlas and Conan Exiles. While the concept of these games are fine and the survival element is surely present, it gets boring and repetitive really fast in my opinion.
In Ark: Survival Evolved, you start as an empty character without any skills. You collect stuff, build stuff and kill stuff to gather XP, level up, unlock perks and new skills and overall, just to be granted the right to do more advanced things in the game like tame a certain dinosaur or build a specific plank or wooden corner. Just go out into the wild and grind your way up.
The graphics are fair, although a little rough in my opinion. The lighting effects from the sun are great though. The animations of characters are stiff and lifeless, especially when doing things like sleeping or mounting your dinosaur pet. The music and sounds are blend and nothing special. They work and that is what matters.
But then, you got the controls and menu’s. My God, the overlay, GUI and skill tree system is so unbelievable confusing, it drove me mad sometimes. I constantly pressed the wrong keys to open or close menu’s, did not know where to find stuff, inventory management became a real chore sometimes, and I had the feeling that I was playing some sort of SQL database many times over. I sincerely did not like anything related to the controls or GUI.
The servers and matchmaking system in Ark: Survival Evolved are terrible. Many times, servers did not show up, games with friends were not visible and many times, the game got stuck in loading. I needed to search the deepest pits of the internet for all kinds of tweaks, fixes, startup parameters and more to finally get it working. And even then, one day it works fine, the day after one of my friends experienced the same issues out of the blue. I reinstalled the game three times over the course of a few weeks back then, because that was the only way that I could play with my friends.
The worlds are massive, which is normal for sandbox games like this. There are many forests, flowers, wildlife and rivers, which makes the game less hollow than Atlas, but it still feels blend and empty. You walk miles and miles through empty plains and forests before something of interest happens. Sure there are many dinosaurs in the vicinity, but most of the times, they one hit kill you so you avoid them like the plague. And although this is not necessarily bad, it was just tedious to walk and walk to a certain spot, knowing that every step could be your last. Sometimes, I got attacked by something that I did not even saw coming. One step was fine, the next I was dead. It was later revealed that this were some sort of very fast, tiny dinosaurs that ram and jump you when you get close. Maybe I am blind, but I still haven’t seen any of those motherf…. anywhere in the world.
The main reason I don’t like this game is because it is just one of the many games that follows the exact same play style and mechanics that become repetitive and boring so quickly. Make a character, collect plant fibers, build a tiny shack, level up, get more stuff, kill some dinosaurs (if they don’t kill you first), tame them, ride them and done. Although there is some kind of endgame by defeating or taming some almighty dinosaur, the game never really ends.
You can grind away until you become max level and tame all the dinosaurs in the world, but with this game, the purpose of doing this dies after taming your first dinosaur. Things feel pointless and I had the constant feeling that I can never “complete” this game. The same goes for games like Minecraft and Atlas. The main turning point is when I became so powerful that nothing is a challenge anymore and just grinding material.
Ark: Survival evolved can be tweaked in any way you like with mods or “legit” by server admin options, but that makes the game unstable sometimes and more importantly, it defeats even more purpose to play it. Don’t want to walk back to your corpse after dying? Just configure/tweak the game to keep all your stuff. Don’t want to walk? No problem, just activate flying. Your beloved dinosaur just died? No problem, bro; here I revived him for you. There are no clear rules, and everything can be avoided or made easier. Even when you play fair or vanilla, you constantly get the feeling that everything can be fixed or made easier later on when you encounter a difficult or tedious situation. There is no penalty and no consequence.
It is weird, but for me, only 7 Days to Die gets this survival sandbox genre right and keeps the game interesting for long periods of time. With Ark: Survival Evolved, I got three hours of fun before being bored out of my mind and I could not force myself to play it any longer.
Of course, this is still my own experience and opinion with the game, but personally I cannot recommend Ark: Survival Evolved.
In Ark: Survival Evolved, you start as an empty character without any skills. You collect stuff, build stuff and kill stuff to gather XP, level up, unlock perks and new skills and overall, just to be granted the right to do more advanced things in the game like tame a certain dinosaur or build a specific plank or wooden corner. Just go out into the wild and grind your way up.
The graphics are fair, although a little rough in my opinion. The lighting effects from the sun are great though. The animations of characters are stiff and lifeless, especially when doing things like sleeping or mounting your dinosaur pet. The music and sounds are blend and nothing special. They work and that is what matters.
But then, you got the controls and menu’s. My God, the overlay, GUI and skill tree system is so unbelievable confusing, it drove me mad sometimes. I constantly pressed the wrong keys to open or close menu’s, did not know where to find stuff, inventory management became a real chore sometimes, and I had the feeling that I was playing some sort of SQL database many times over. I sincerely did not like anything related to the controls or GUI.
The servers and matchmaking system in Ark: Survival Evolved are terrible. Many times, servers did not show up, games with friends were not visible and many times, the game got stuck in loading. I needed to search the deepest pits of the internet for all kinds of tweaks, fixes, startup parameters and more to finally get it working. And even then, one day it works fine, the day after one of my friends experienced the same issues out of the blue. I reinstalled the game three times over the course of a few weeks back then, because that was the only way that I could play with my friends.
The worlds are massive, which is normal for sandbox games like this. There are many forests, flowers, wildlife and rivers, which makes the game less hollow than Atlas, but it still feels blend and empty. You walk miles and miles through empty plains and forests before something of interest happens. Sure there are many dinosaurs in the vicinity, but most of the times, they one hit kill you so you avoid them like the plague. And although this is not necessarily bad, it was just tedious to walk and walk to a certain spot, knowing that every step could be your last. Sometimes, I got attacked by something that I did not even saw coming. One step was fine, the next I was dead. It was later revealed that this were some sort of very fast, tiny dinosaurs that ram and jump you when you get close. Maybe I am blind, but I still haven’t seen any of those motherf…. anywhere in the world.
The main reason I don’t like this game is because it is just one of the many games that follows the exact same play style and mechanics that become repetitive and boring so quickly. Make a character, collect plant fibers, build a tiny shack, level up, get more stuff, kill some dinosaurs (if they don’t kill you first), tame them, ride them and done. Although there is some kind of endgame by defeating or taming some almighty dinosaur, the game never really ends.
You can grind away until you become max level and tame all the dinosaurs in the world, but with this game, the purpose of doing this dies after taming your first dinosaur. Things feel pointless and I had the constant feeling that I can never “complete” this game. The same goes for games like Minecraft and Atlas. The main turning point is when I became so powerful that nothing is a challenge anymore and just grinding material.
Ark: Survival evolved can be tweaked in any way you like with mods or “legit” by server admin options, but that makes the game unstable sometimes and more importantly, it defeats even more purpose to play it. Don’t want to walk back to your corpse after dying? Just configure/tweak the game to keep all your stuff. Don’t want to walk? No problem, just activate flying. Your beloved dinosaur just died? No problem, bro; here I revived him for you. There are no clear rules, and everything can be avoided or made easier. Even when you play fair or vanilla, you constantly get the feeling that everything can be fixed or made easier later on when you encounter a difficult or tedious situation. There is no penalty and no consequence.
It is weird, but for me, only 7 Days to Die gets this survival sandbox genre right and keeps the game interesting for long periods of time. With Ark: Survival Evolved, I got three hours of fun before being bored out of my mind and I could not force myself to play it any longer.
Of course, this is still my own experience and opinion with the game, but personally I cannot recommend Ark: Survival Evolved.
An amazing survival game!
I love this game. It's one of the best survival games out there. Although I am not the least bit happy about how the multiplayer works, it's unnecessarily complicated and doesn't work well many times. It should have been way simpler than that. Aside from that, it does a really good job in providing the vibe we expect.