ARK: Survival Evolved, it has been quite some time since my initial preview of this game, just over 2 years since my article went live with over 300 hours spent within its dangerous lands. Marketing itself as a Dinosaur infested island survival game, amongst a stream of similar early access games. ARK had quite a heavy focus on taming and tribe building, in comparison to the other games within the genre, which was what got me interested in the first place. With so much time invested, both by players and developer updates, has the ARK produced an amazing product?
Story
Every player, whether be it local or online, wakes up somewhere on one of 4 maps. 2 of which are free DLC, the map which they choose either in world creation or server selection. Looking at their wrist they see a Diamond shaped object embedded into their skin, head full of questions you look around to see a huge island full of forests, rivers and Dinosaurs. If you play online you will see settlements made by other players and bases for their tribes, but besides this the only other hint of a story or plot are the obelisks in the sky and pillars of light.
As you scavenge for supplies, find the supply drops that fall from the skies, and explore the map you will uncover mentions of Guardians of the Ark, or super bosses for those who want it in gaming terms. To hunt these beasts down, traverse the hidden caves on the maps and most importantly survive, these are your tasks on the island.
You can gather that you are on ARK, an island where several men and women are dropped, to gather information on how people progress and evolve. As you survive, build and tame the beasts of the island you will level up and learn Engrams from your Diamond in your wrist, progressing further along in technology, from wooden structures to automatic weaponry.
ARK is a game that isn’t meant to end, while there is a story to be found, hidden deep within the maps, it will take varying amounts of time to actually get to that point. As stated before, I have over 300 hours of game time with ARK, with over another 40 in the newest versions. A lot of that time can be pinned down to all the grinding necessary to play the game. You will spend around 2 hours just mining for iron to fill up your furnaces, to even spending 8 hours trying to tame some of the stronger dinosaurs.
Gameplay
Once you load up the game you have several choices to make in terms of how you will play the game. Through a local connection, hosting a server or joining one of the countless ones online. The only thing that will change is the amount of players or server settings. Once you choose a server you log in and create a character, with the customizations seeing an increase in variety since early access. You then select a portion of the map and are dropped randomly in that area. From there you must gather food, find water and start to level your character up.
Levelling up in ARK is quite simple, you get XP every minute or so, collecting items, chopping trees and crafting items, once you have the capability you can also hunt dinos for much more experience. Once you get enough XP you will level up, allowing you to increase one of your stats, from health and stamina to melee damage or resistance to weather. After choosing a stat you can spend Engram points to learn new recipes, from crafting weapons and powders to walls and machines. This is how you progress in the game, level up, gain knowledge, and obtain a higher position in the food chain.
The game is pretty easy to pick up, controls are the norm if you have ever played a PC game, WASD is for movement, E picks items up as well as interacts, with the mouse being used for aiming and attacking. There are plenty of items to put into your inventory and hot bar, accessed with I and number buttons accordingly. Besides the normal controls you also have the ability to whistle with several buttons, T for follow and U to stay, to name the most commonly used ones, mostly for controlling your tamed dinos.
Once you get high enough level you can create Saddles, and with those you can ride Dinosaurs after you tame them. To tame a dino you must knock it out with tranquilizer arrows/bullets then feed it food, taking from 30 minutes to 8 hours real time, once that is done you have an amazing new weapon in your arsenal. The more dinos you have the safer you will be and the faster you can gather resources, carnivores gathering meat and hide from dinos they kill and herbivores being used for berry and wood gathering.
Since early access, ARK has received 48 ARK digest and dossiers, introducing new features and dinosaurs. With around 150 creatures that stalk the plains, mountains and oceans, ARK is full of wildlife. You can tame over 70 of these creatures, to use as mounts or workers to mine metal, harvest fibre passively and more. When I first played the game, it had nowhere near that number, let alone creatures that could harvest items passively.
Overall Thoughts and Feelings
The music in ARK still hasn’t been used to its fullest extent, with music being reserved for battles and certain points in the game, from changes in day cycle to entering a new area. The soundtrack itself still sounds amazingly put together along with really fitting the scenery and atmosphere of the game. ARK thankfully has fixed its music and sound bugs from its previous version.
Sadly, ARK still suffers a lot from poor optimisation, from fps and their pc requirements to the glitches and bugs that fill its world as well as its inhabitants. With the addition of more grassy plains, bigger trees and effects going on I barely got 30fps on medium settings, with my computer seeing a few upgrades itself. You can turn off all the effects and turn it to low settings, but as expected this makes the game look horrible. Dinos are still plagued with bad spawns, appearing on the side of cliffs as well as getting stuck inside of objects.
ARK leans very heavily on its player base and multiplayer, as it is a game developed and designed for group play. When you are playing with a group of friends or making a Tribe, it really shines in its enjoyment and cooperation. However, due to the games fault or not, the community can be very toxic and uninviting. From players who have been around since 2 years ago, to new ones finding quick guides and help, outshining and bullying newbies. Like similar games, DayZ or Rust, it is a game all about trust, and you can’t trust many people within a world full of Dinosaurs.
Recently, and I might go on a bit of a rant here so sorry if the word count gets a bit long, ARK has received a price increase. Now, the developers did mention this in the past so players have had fair warning. However, plenty of gamers and owners of ARK are outraged at this increase, which is a bit silly. The amount of work put into ARK, the hours, the updates, the reworks and additions of changes similar to mods and requests is amazing. We’ve had updates consistently through the development cycle, making this game huge. Now I’m not saying they have done a perfect job, selling an expansion during early access was a poor move, among other things. But as it stands at its release, ARK is worth more than the £10 or £20 you initially paid for it. Some people have played this game for close to 10,000 hours, yes ten thousand, and this can be due to the grindy nature of the game, but sticking with it for so long speaks volumes of the time people are willing to pour into ARK. Is the game worth £50? Maybe not for you, but for some this game has brought years of entertainment.
ARK does have a big disadvantage, being its official servers being severely less fun than the unofficial ones. With active moderators, faster game speeds and add-ons or mods, the game becomes several times more enjoyable. If you’re starting out, an official server may suit your needs, but you will eventually go towards the unofficial ones, and when you do, you won’t want to go back.
Overall, Ark: Survival Evolved gets an 8/10, it was and still is a great game, with the new additions to the game and changes it has seen a vast improvement. However, it still has a big problem, glitches and optimisation, with many claiming it has not improved since day one. Early Access, Alphas and Betas are meant to be the time you make a game stable, not add more stuff to break it. More is not always better, especially when the leg you’re standing on has 3 gunshot wounds and phases out of existence every now and then. The gameplay is entertaining, with multiplayer getting even better with more people. But guard your wallets around the expansion and season pass as it may not be worth it for you in the beginning.
I suggest ARK to any fan of Minecraft or similar building game, as well to people who enjoy survival games like DayZ and the like.
You must be logged in to post a comment.