Ark: Survival Evolved Reviews
In the end, Ark's ambition pulls it in the right direction with more force than its clunkiness tugs it the other way. It's always more enjoyable to spend time with a game that tries something new and exciting, stumbling along the way, than a game that tries to tick focus group-inspired boxes. If that game also happens to simulate an entire prehistoric ecosystem, and produces bewildering emergent scenarios like clockwork, all the better.
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.
This has got to be one of the most fun survival/crafting games since Minecraft. With the dinosaurs, diverse crafting options and detailed graphics, Ark truly delivers an immersive experience. Taming time, limited player space and a HUGE (too big) open world are things that Studio Wildcard could look to change, without altering server settings.
ARK: Survival Evolved is a videogame with tons of posibilities where we'll fall in love with its splendorous aesthetics, its content and its particularly atractive thematic. It's sad, though, that our most important enemy in a world plagued with dinosaurs may be its disastrous optimization.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
When I'm having a good time in ARK, I'm having a really good time. The problem is that those moments are usually one part to every nine parts menial grinding and crafting - especially at the later tech tiers. Having to repeat so much work after failing an attempt at a boss feels far too punishing, and some really dumb dinosaurs can take a lot of the challenge and sense of danger out of the many primal locations. Even with all of those quirks, however, I'm still hungry to play more after the 60 hours I've spent so far. There aren't a lot of survival games that have legitimately held my attention that long.
This ambitious survival game emerges from Early Access fully featured but just as in danger of toppling in on itself as ever before.
Studio Wildcard has built a game that feels like a rough framework for players creating their own experiences, rather than a whole, cohesive experience in and of itself. There's a lot hear to see and do: gathering, crafting a wide variety of items, taming animals, and building tribes. But it's hidden behind an elder game that teaches players nothing and a mid-game of maintenance and tedium. But there's promise here underneath the cruft and rough edges. That promise just isn't full realized yet.
If you are willing to put the time in and overlook the flaws, This is a great game.
When you finally get over the initially steep learning curve and find fellow like-minded players that you can group up with, ARK: Survival Evolved becomes a truly enjoyable sandbox game where anything goes. But not even the impressive dinosaurs and cool tech can cover up just how repetitive the game really is, and how you're forced to sink in hours and hours of grinding before you can finally start to get to the ‘good' stuff.
Its pricey to be sure, but if you’re a fan of the genre Ark is worth picking up. The hours of gameplay it offers pays for itself already. Also: dinosaurs.
Ark: Survival Evolved has a bunch of interesting ideas. But by attempting to be a jack-of-all-trades, it doesn't really feel like it has mastered any particular element. This doesn't mean there isn't fun to be had in the ARK; if you enjoy the brutal survival mechanics on offer here, then you will likely spend many dozens, if not hundreds, of hours in the quite lengthy grind as you conquer the primitive world. For many people, however, the time required to really enjoy what's shown on the cover art may prove too insurmountable.
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.
Ark: Survival Evolved was first launched on Steam Early Access in June 2015. Ark: Survival Evolved spent about a year on early access for consoles and now the open-world survival crafting game has been officially released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One & PC. As the title says the main aim of the game is to survive, and you will be put through your paces when it comes to crafting and building yourself a future in the Ark universe.
ARK: Survival Evolved is a mixed-bag experience that only truly caters to those well aware of, or heavily interested in, the survival genre.
The survival game ARK: Survival Evolved released recently with a bunch of interesting and fun features. The survival crafting game does a lot more than other games in this genre, having actual end game, and reason to be doing the things you are. Ark boasts a huge diverse roster of dinosaurs, and biomes with multiple “Arks” to play on for free and more coming via DLC.
Amazing things are possible in the ARK — the gun-wielding soldier set high atop the most badass predator of all time comes to mind — but the experience is clouded by the best ones being locked behind excessive grinding, boring farming and the need for a large group.
I want to love this game so bad, but I just can't.
A bloated, grindy mess, but so packed with options that a better game is hidden inside it.
In its best moments, Ark is the dream of every Dino fan. But bugs and the grindy game principle often spoil the fun.
Review in German | Read full review
Ark Survival Evolved is a good survival game with awesome mechanics, but it's also a technical disaster (lag, freezes, connection issues...). Such a shame!
Review in French | Read full review