Things such as player resistance level, average dinosaur strength, and overall game difficulty can be scaled up and down to your heart’s content, resulting in a game playing almost exactly how you’d like it to. However, since Ark has such heavy PC roots, there are all kinds of knobs to fiddle with. It seems this mechanic is likely to sour the PvP experience for many gamers.įor those who do decide to take their game offline, the odds feel stacked against having the best of times. Even if someone is far enough along that they have a small army of dinosaurs to defend their territory, the best AI in this game isn’t really much of a match against a particularly skilled player or group of players. Yet PvP servers can feel frustrating, because just the simple act of sleeping in real life may wipe out all of your progress overnight if a terrorizing player finds your base, raids and kills you. On the one hand, it’s a unique mechanic that practically forces you to constantly play the game, at least twice a week. The living world mechanic of the online portion of Ark: Survival Evolved is a double-edged sword. Just simply coming back to the game within that time limit is no guarantee that your character and stuff is still safe, either, as you and your things are still open to receive damage while you’re not online. After a certain amount of inactivity (three days or so), players and their structures are killed and demolished automatically. They simply go to sleep in the exact spot in which you left the game, slumped over, and essentially lifeless. PvP servers are only recommended if you have a group of friends whom you know are reliable and in it to play for the long run, because your character continues to live on even if you quit the game. This includes Player-vs-Player (PvP) as well as Player-vs-Environment (PvE). There are a decent amount of official servers available, supporting up to 72 players on a single island. At the same time, as you venture further inland, the dinosaurs and other creatures become tougher, requiring coordination between multiple people to have a hope of taking down successfully. Once you reach level 15 or so, the items that can be crafted start having higher resource requirements. Perhaps that’s the point.Īrk: Survival Evolved really pushes you to play with others. But for others, it may prove to create a steep learning curve that is insurmountable without referring to a guide or asking other for help. Many people who enjoy the sense of discovery this limited help system imparts will love this aspect. For instance, wooden walls connect to wooden foundations, door frames, doors and ceilings to make a dwelling. Now, some things simply require the use of common sense. Ark shows you a massive list of silhouetted engrams (item blueprints) that you will unlock at certain levels, but it doesn’t really hint at how some disparate pieces go together. Some games that drop you in a vast world and tell you to learn as you go do so in ways that give you some semblance of a hint. A surprising threat also includes gigantic insects, which can kill you if you aren’t paying attention. A wide range of the beasts can be found throughout the island, from the small but surprisingly fierce Compy to the terrifying but iconic T-Rex. By this point in the game’s life, there are dozens of dinosaurs to fight and tame. Few of them deal so extensively in dinosaurs, however, and that is the main hook in Ark: Survival Evolved. There are a ton of open-world survival games available today. Whether in the scorched desert, tropical forests, or frozen mountain peaks, there is a believable and dynamic soundtrack to accompany each environment, which can also serve as something else to listen to as I try to determine if I am still being hunted by that raptor I fled frantically from. Startled, I readied my hatchet, only to turn around and see that it’s an herbivore that startled me, and I could breathe a sigh of relief. Suddenly, a medium-sized dinosaur might burst forth from the deeper forest, with an accompanying growl. One moment, things may be relatively calm as I’m busy collecting fiber and berries from nearby brush. Studio Wildcard has ambiance nailed in Ark. Bodies of water have some odd reflections going on, and there is the occasional pop-in if you’re running for dear life (which may be fairly often early on!), but it is a pleasing game to look at overall. The various biomes of the Ark are believable, and each more hazardous than the next. Generally speaking, the frame rate stays high no matter what action is currently taking place. As usual, this highly-optimized engine runs very smoothly on consoles. Ark was created using the Unreal Engine 4.
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