Ark: Survival Evolved Reviews
ARK: Ultimate Survivor Edition had a suspect launch, but with the commitment and care of the developers, they have rallied back and the game makes for a fun time with friends or by yourself. The Island and Scorched Earth will test your survival instincts for sure. With the addition of the lovely ARK Dinosaur Discovery game you can download from the eShop for the kiddos and the new maps having a timeline in the future, you and your family will have plenty of things to do for the near future.
If you have friends, Ark: Survival Evolved is a fun survival game, with options such as PvP or PvE servers to make every player happy. If you primarily play alone, however, this game will require a heavy set of grinding and repetition, turning off any players hoping to just get a taste of some dinosaur action.
Ark: Survival Evolved is an open-world survival game where you're fighting against the elements and the dinosaurs around you. There are some nice concepts implemented, but framerate and performance issues drag the game down. Unless these are somehow fixed, you might be better off steering clear.
Ark: Survival Evolved has more bugs than the grill of a Mack truck and your first introduction to the game can feel akin to the sensation of being hit by aforementioned truck, but peel away the layers of abstruse game mechanics and you'll find a strangely compelling game that'll make you feel like the Pope of Dino-Town at times and want to open a vein in a hot bath at others.
Ark Survival Evolved is a unique open world survivor game pitting players to overcome a harsh ecosystem. They may choose to do so solo or with friends; in addition to playing against other gamers in a showmanship of the most advance hunters. Level opposing villages or work with them in an exchange of services. Ark gives you the opportunity to grow a garden, tame mystical and ancient beasts, and much more; the power of this lies in your forearm and your ambitions.
I want to love this game so bad, but I just can't.
Like a lot of of titles in this genre, Ark: Survival Evolved has a steep learning curve and requires quite the time - and possibly financial - investment. But once you get into the rhythm of it, the endless need to survive, set against the simple satisfaction of slowly building up your capacity to do so, makes this a game that could well turn into a hobby for you, all in itself.
To enjoy ARK: Survival Evolved you're going to have to earn it, and that's a tough sell in this day and age. For those who are willing to sweat over their controller to make even the smallest amount of headway, this is a title you should definitely give a chance. However, if the idea of suffering for a while to gain any real traction sounds horrible, steer clear. Those who survive this are going to prove they deserve to - and that's the ARK experience.
ARK: Survival Evolved is still a good game, but it's not a one friendly with newcomers. Getting to the enjoyable part of the game will take hours, so gamers need to be willing to put the time into it. The game looks even better now than it did before, making you fear for your life when you see the hulking beasts out to get you, not to mention the gorgeous environments you'll explore.
ARK: Survival Evolved is a mixed-bag experience that only truly caters to those well aware of, or heavily interested in, the survival genre.
Is this the worst game on the Switch? It is very close. Ark: Survival Evolved is easily the most poorly converted game on the system, which makes it feel like it could be the worst. If things worked and it didn't look like computer generated vomit, it might have been an average survival game at best. Nothing would distinguish itself. It is unfortunate that the one aspect it has that makes it stand out is just how much of a porting disaster it has proven to be.
To say that personal frustration isn't involved would be a lie. To say that said personal frustration seems to come around because a game wasn't properly balanced between the multiplayer and single-player aspects, with it being tilted a bit too heavily towards the top dogs, would be true. As a single-player title, ARK: Survival Evolved can get quite tedious and annoying having to handle tasks meant for multiple people solo. As a multiplayer game, having to submit to survive and not have everything ruined is annoying, as well. Hopefully, a better balance can be found, but, for now, the game just feels wrong for what it's supposed to be.
Is a Switch game that can realistically only be played in docked mode actually playable? The entire point of this system is to be able to take your games with you, but ARK can't really offer that. It draws into question the sanctity of the Nintendo seal of quality. The fact that it is not only available to the public, but costs money is an insult. Don't buy ARK on Switch.
Ark is not one of those game to start playing it and just leave it on your shelf after a short time. If you really want to be good in this game you should have a team of real-life friends that you trust. Your team's players should have lots of free time too. Ark Survival Evolved can easily be one of the best experiences you've had over the years.
Review in Persian | Read full review
There are many resource gathering and survival based games on the market and ARK: Survival Evolved almost feels like it has officially jumped in a little too late after finally leaving Early Access. If you don’t mind spending hour after hour of doing repetitive and tedious tasks, you may find some fun in the later stages of the game. However, if that doesn’t sound worth it, ARK: Survival Evolved likely isn’t going to be for you.
In a way, ARK lost itself during its development. What started as an interesting survival with dinosaurs experience turned into a PVP wasteland, uninteresting and grindy mechanics. There are some cool ideas under the hood, but not worth the time invested.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Ark is an incredibly fun game to play through and explore. As with the best survival games in the genre, it has that “just one more time” aspect going for it.
ARK: Survival Evolved is an interesting game that spent a great deal of time in Early Access / Beta. The developers used this time to try and polish a title that has long had a lot of potential - but the question I had was this: did they polish it up enough? The answer is kind of a mixed bag.
Ark: Survival Evolved is very interesting case study of a game, with fascinating history due to its prolonged time in Early Access / Game Preview. At the same time, it's undeniably one of the biggest success stories for Early Access as a whole, a program flooded with survival titles. No, there really isn't much of a story, which is a shame given the few cryptic hints of lore that are present. Yes, there are still glitches, bugs and server issues that need to be addressed. All of that in mind, if you are fan of survival games, this is undeniably THE definitive survival game to play. Taming dinosaurs and exploring an island that defies time is wondrous, doubly so if you have friends to play it with. At a full retail price of $60, if you are both a fan of survival games and are intent on forming a tribe with people you play games with, it's definitely worth a go.