ARK: Survival Evolved

 PC
User Score
6.5

Mixed or average reviews- based on 652 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 348 out of 652
  2. Mixed: 124 out of 652
  3. Negative: 180 out of 652

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  1. Robobob
    Jun 18, 2022
    4
    It's a game. It exists. And that's how I feel when I'm playing it. I'm just kind of existing in the world populated by dinosaurs. There's the foundations of something decent here: lots of species of prehistoric animals with different pros and cons, an in-depth survival system. But, did anyone ever playtest this game? Did they think it was fun to poke a dinosaur 20x until it dies? OrIt's a game. It exists. And that's how I feel when I'm playing it. I'm just kind of existing in the world populated by dinosaurs. There's the foundations of something decent here: lots of species of prehistoric animals with different pros and cons, an in-depth survival system. But, did anyone ever playtest this game? Did they think it was fun to poke a dinosaur 20x until it dies? Or shoot 20 arrows at a charging animal while running from it? Even dinosaurs well below your level will take 5-10 hits and there's really no variety to the action.
    The mining system is designed so that you are constantly acquiring stuff you don't need to mine for one thing you DO need. Like "metal." One generic metal in the game that you acquire through RNG through mining other rock. But you seem to have a better chance if you use a pick, so you will get hundreds and hundreds of extra flint while looking for metal that I ended up throwing away. Who thought this was a good idea? Why no designated "metal" veins in the world? When flint it onyl useful for a couple crafting recipes why not make it a much rarer pick up?
    Taming dinosaurs might have been fun but if you tame anything below level 25 it is useless. As a mount it can't even carry you without it's movement speed dropping to a crawl.
    I played only the single player campaign and my character wakes up on the beach... and that's it. No story, no NPCs to tell you what to do.
    After building an expensive small house and training some slow mounts, I think I've done everything of interest in this game. And if there is something more interesting to do., the game wasn't good enough to steer me in the right direction. Glad I got it for free on Steam and didn't pay a cent.    … Expand
  2. BlueBeefalo
    Dec 27, 2018
    4
    The game is fine alone in gameplay, however, runs like it's on a potato on even high-level GPUs. Playing alone is plain annoying. The official servers are mostly thousands of days in but that's not all. Hours, even DAYS of progress can be, for all intents and purposes, deleted, because some **** is able to take a completely overpowered fantasy dinosaur from a DLC that you don't have andThe game is fine alone in gameplay, however, runs like it's on a potato on even high-level GPUs. Playing alone is plain annoying. The official servers are mostly thousands of days in but that's not all. Hours, even DAYS of progress can be, for all intents and purposes, deleted, because some **** is able to take a completely overpowered fantasy dinosaur from a DLC that you don't have and transfer it through to a server on the base game's map, the island, and go on a rampage destroying everything because they're simply a **** sociopath. All in all, unless you play on a private server with your friends or on a newer unofficial server, I don't recommend this at all. There's no stopping anyone from ruining your entire progress using a completely broken tame if you're on an official server, not even the ones that say "No ark data downloads" because that means ****… Expand
  3. S3XU4LH34L1NG
    Nov 20, 2021
    4
    This game gave me janky "trashy" feel from the first time in the main menu to the first time spawning in. I gave it a reasonably fair shot (5hrs or so) but it didnt work for me despite me liking the survival genre. I know whats to come in late game (i watched some youtubers) but i guess there are other games that fare better with the technological progression thing. Optimazation is a messThis game gave me janky "trashy" feel from the first time in the main menu to the first time spawning in. I gave it a reasonably fair shot (5hrs or so) but it didnt work for me despite me liking the survival genre. I know whats to come in late game (i watched some youtubers) but i guess there are other games that fare better with the technological progression thing. Optimazation is a mess for such an old game and these kinda meh graphics.… Expand
  4. Vahl
    Aug 23, 2021
    4
    How do you program a game so poorly that the goddamn console commands don't work?

    Welcome to Ark! The game that dare ask, what if Bethesda made a Pokemon game? The game that proves that you really need to hire more than one programmer to make your game actually function properly. The game that taught it's player base, don't expect that bug to get fixed. Cause nothing will ever be    How do you program a game so poorly that the goddamn console commands don't work?

    Welcome to Ark! The game that dare ask, what if Bethesda made a Pokemon game? The game that proves that you really need to hire more than one programmer to make your game actually function properly. The game that taught it's player base, don't expect that bug to get fixed. Cause nothing will ever be fixed... ever.

    In summary f*ck Wildcard Studios. I'm gonna buy Ark II because I have stockholm syndrome, pls help!    … Expand
  5. LT_Gruber
    Feb 15, 2023
    4
    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    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.

    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.    … Expand
  6. realWhiteMan
    Apr 9, 2023
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. My rating is based on my impressions of the game. This is not an objective review. I play quite a big number of titles per year and decided to review them as a peace of art and not as a product.… Expand
  7. SouperKoopa
    Jun 26, 2023
    4
    In the beginning it's fun, but it's way too grindy. Even with adjusting the settings. Also there are more bugs in ark than on earth and not to mention the optimization (which was totally forgotten). Also the graphics are meh. It's so pixely and just does not look right. Also, story aspect is neglectable.

    pros: - fun in the beginning - dinos - progression system cons: - dinos    In the beginning it's fun, but it's way too grindy. Even with adjusting the settings. Also there are more bugs in ark than on earth and not to mention the optimization (which was totally forgotten). Also the graphics are meh. It's so pixely and just does not look right. Also, story aspect is neglectable.

    pros:
    - fun in the beginning
    - dinos
    - progression system

    cons:
    - dinos always aggressive
    - contless bugs (yes, game breaking ones)
    - very punishing gamplay
    - sooooo grindy
    - horrible performance
    - Dino AI is less intelligent than a minecraft zombie
    - Dinos are most of the time just pain

    Only reason why I have so many hours is just because I was a noob and its grind factor (adjusted the settings, still items too expensive)    … Expand
  8. budwheizzah
    Nov 10, 2017
    3
    One of the industry's most promising titles turned into the single most heinous, unplayable, gruesome piece of software in history. This pathetic game studio have over the years finely tuned a CIA torture and interrogation purgatory that would render terrorist groups speechless and in envy.

    From blatant refusal to resolve horrendously broken core game mechanics for two years straight,    One of the industry's most promising titles turned into the single most heinous, unplayable, gruesome piece of software in history. This pathetic game studio have over the years finely tuned a CIA torture and interrogation purgatory that would render terrorist groups speechless and in envy.

    From blatant refusal to resolve horrendously broken core game mechanics for two years straight, to releasing full price DLC midway through the most pathetic Early Access process I've ever seen, to stretching themselves hair-thin across editions, expansions and console versions, constantly making useless content additions while the game's functionality went down the toilet, to not being able to wait until going out of Early Access before charging full price, to not even having a finished product on their hands when getting out of EA and finally making content modifications reinforcing ARK's focus on assaulting players through exhaustion and psychopathic degrees of grind, I not only believe ARK goes down as one of the most disappointing titles in history, but also, the team behind it are a bunch of sick, deranged individuals.    … Expand
  9. Noshar
    Sep 3, 2017
    3
    What can i say about Ark? I was a day 1 EA purchaser of this game. The game was beautiful, with a amazing concept and an ambitious dev behind it. For the first 6 months or so, this was the game to play. It was amazing. Very frequent updates, great communication from the developers, lots of community interaction.

    So what happened after that? Well, it's hard to say why, but at the start    What can i say about Ark? I was a day 1 EA purchaser of this game. The game was beautiful, with a amazing concept and an ambitious dev behind it. For the first 6 months or so, this was the game to play. It was amazing. Very frequent updates, great communication from the developers, lots of community interaction.

    So what happened after that? Well, it's hard to say why, but at the start of 2016, the Developers attitude changed for the worst. Updates drew to a month or more a part, often days or even weeks late, and nearly always with the "meat" of that update missing. It was disappointing, but, issues only got worse. Communication stopped almost completely, community interactions stopped at best and at worst became negative. A number of times, a lead member of the development staff posted on reddit calling people liars, and being a complete jerk off. As time went on, things got worse and worse, the customer support got worse, major problems with the game were outright ignored, and in fact intentionally made even worse, the developers began to lie to the community, and they even released DLC while still in EA.

    The devs still to this day refuse to even acknowledge that their game has problems which leaves very little hope for the people on Official Servers. If you say the game is too grindy, the devs will laugh at you and tell you you're wrong. If you want to re spec your stats more than once at max level, the devs will tell you to buy the game again and level an entirely new character on a entirely different copy of the game (and in fact, TheRightHand (one of the lead developers) did say this and received quite a bit of backlash for it). They do nothing but deflect criticism and dodge the issues.

    So, why did i give this game a 3? Well, it's because of the developers. They keep compounding the problems the game has, and making already bad problems flat out worse. They treat the community like dirt, they lie, they could care less about anyone's actual experience playing the game. There is a good game here, but it's so bogged down with all the **** the devs keep piling on it that it's completely buried. Dig this gem out of the pile of **** it's buried in clean it up a little and it will shine, but the devs seem to have no interest in doing that.

    In conclusion, i will say that this game is incredibly grindy, repetitive, unbalanced, and unrefined, not worthy of it's $60 asking price, and the developers, Studio Wildcard, are not worthy of your trust. Because of what Studio Wildcard has done I can not and will not recommend this game or any game they produce in the future.    … Expand
  10. afroduckie
    Oct 22, 2017
    3
    This game was pretty great when it first came out, but the devs are BEYOND stupid and irrational with their balance changes. At this point, balance is unattainable, optimization is almost WORSE than when the game first came out (I have a 1080 Ti, 60FPS shouldn't require ritual sacrifice at 1440p), and why in God's name did the devs had to remove the flying dinos from multiplayer servers? IThis game was pretty great when it first came out, but the devs are BEYOND stupid and irrational with their balance changes. At this point, balance is unattainable, optimization is almost WORSE than when the game first came out (I have a 1080 Ti, 60FPS shouldn't require ritual sacrifice at 1440p), and why in God's name did the devs had to remove the flying dinos from multiplayer servers? I WANT MY FLYING FORTRESS! They could have at the very least removed them from ONLY official servers instead of ALL OF THEM! GAH. Why does it have to take several long hours to tame a dino? Just give us some hard objective to do to tame them, don't waste 5 literal hours of our time to tame some piddly little dino. So much potential wasted by amateurish devs that would rather release 3/4 paid DLCs rather than getting the fricken game to run.… Expand
  11. coatoan90
    Nov 18, 2017
    3
    Ok I am writing this review as a new player, I have not read any other reviews, this is my personal experience playing on 11/17/17-11/18/17.

    I tried 8 different NA servers 4 being PVE and 4 being PVP to make sure it wasn't just a "One time" occurrence. Firstly the game IS NOTHING LIKE ADVERTISED. NOTHING. Literally no one gives a f*** if you are a new player they will kill you and    Ok I am writing this review as a new player, I have not read any other reviews, this is my personal experience playing on 11/17/17-11/18/17.

    I tried 8 different NA servers 4 being PVE and 4 being PVP to make sure it wasn't just a "One time" occurrence.

    Firstly the game IS NOTHING LIKE ADVERTISED. NOTHING. Literally no one gives a f*** if you are a new player they will kill you and grief you on a PVP server because they can.

    Forget taming dinosuars, you will NEVER get the chance on a PVE server. Older players have made it their life mission to royally screw you over as a new player. You get to choose spawn locations from a tab, first logging in you will be surrounded by bases of other players. Why? Because they are d***s. The mechanics in the game don't allow you to build near anyone's base, so the low level area with hardly any carnivores? Ya they have them locked down to make it impossible for you to level, progress, and respawn when you die. It's also intentional. They will build small nods inbetween their bases to prevent other players from building. So you are forced to move into the higher level carnivore infested areas to do anything.

    All in all if this doesn't detour you from buying the game you've been warned. It's nothing like it's presented on youtube, by people that have been in the game since day one, with huge tribes, and private servers.

    In all honesty No Man's Sky was better than this game.    … Expand
  12. DJKrimson
    Jan 5, 2021
    3
    Played this with my friends for around 35 hours. Seemed to have potential of being fun at first but we got very sick of it after a while because we didn't know what to do, where to go, where to find the resources we needed for crafting or anything.

    It feels like it takes eternities to farm materials for upgrades and that makes it really annoying that you can't fast travel with your    Played this with my friends for around 35 hours. Seemed to have potential of being fun at first but we got very sick of it after a while because we didn't know what to do, where to go, where to find the resources we needed for crafting or anything.

    It feels like it takes eternities to farm materials for upgrades and that makes it really annoying that you can't fast travel with your inventory (at least we didn't find out how). Also you'll die pretty often which makes you lose all your stuff you collected + the gear you had so at those times you might have to start farming smaller stuff for the 100th time so you can build basic gear and weapons again.

    If you don't have a dedicated server then playing together is a mess, you can't move 100 meters away from eachother.

    A few of my steam friends have 1000+ hours in this game so it might be fun if you really know what you are doing, but I can't be bothered to find out.    … Expand
  13. junior_mello91
    Jun 23, 2020
    3
    I have about 300 hours of game time and the feeling is frustration.
    at first I really liked the idea of ​​the game, start with nothing, just naked and start looking for food, shelter, weapons, create fire, defend yourself from animals, the graphics are beautiful, I was very enchanted, but everything started to decay when I started let me know that I was spending more time on the game's    I have about 300 hours of game time and the feeling is frustration.
    at first I really liked the idea of ​​the game, start with nothing, just naked and start looking for food, shelter, weapons, create fire, defend yourself from animals, the graphics are beautiful, I was very enchanted, but everything started to decay when I started let me know that I was spending more time on the game's wiki than actually playing, the game doesn't teach you anything, it doesn't give you a hint on what to do, it doesn't give you merits for achievements, you keep asking yourself, I killed the T-Rex , and now? Nothing.
    no merit no achievement nor **** a percent completion bar for the game this **** has
    and it gets worse when you are level enough to complete the caves, bugs on all sides unreal difficulty, you clearly see the animals standing just waiting for you to get close enough to try to kill you.
    I tried to play until I got to the obelisk heads but I will give up on this game
    I bet that when I defeat the bosses, I’ll get Tek armor, and what’s next? Nothing, you’re still on the island not knowing what to do with better armor.    … Expand
  14. doproyee
    Nov 15, 2020
    3
    if you have many friends and make your own server, this game is gonna be pretty good experience. otherwise, it's not good at all.
  15. Lidergelm
    Oct 12, 2020
    3
    Реализация не плохал, но есть огромное НО. Ты не можешь спокойно нормально строиться и развиваться, так как ебаные мудозвоны максимального лвла прилетают на неебических драконах и разъёбывают всё что ты сделал, просто так. Играл часов 10 и за это время мне расхреначили, на 3х разных серваках, 3 чертовых дома. Нахуй эту игру со всеми гандонами!Реализация не плохал, но есть огромное НО. Ты не можешь спокойно нормально строиться и развиваться, так как ебаные мудозвоны максимального лвла прилетают на неебических драконах и разъёбывают всё что ты сделал, просто так. Играл часов 10 и за это время мне расхреначили, на 3х разных серваках, 3 чертовых дома. Нахуй эту игру со всеми гандонами!
  16. SimpleBunny
    Dec 31, 2020
    3
    Simply put, this just isn't a fun game. You start off at a location (often, I spawn at the "easiest"), then began to fend for yourself immediately. You may die from a dino attacking you literally upon spawn. Or you may all of a sudden start to hallucinate, then die. You run out of storage in no time. You become dehydrated quicker than anything. I can see how others enjoy the game. ButSimply put, this just isn't a fun game. You start off at a location (often, I spawn at the "easiest"), then began to fend for yourself immediately. You may die from a dino attacking you literally upon spawn. Or you may all of a sudden start to hallucinate, then die. You run out of storage in no time. You become dehydrated quicker than anything. I can see how others enjoy the game. But unless you have multiple hours to sink into the beginning (they don't call the start a "berry-picking simulator" for nothing), and have the utmost patience, it simply isn't worth it. There is a bunch of performance issues I ran into as well, including stuttering frames and game crashes. There is no V-Sync option, either, which helps with screen tearing. Honestly, I don't think I could recommend this game to anyone except those looking for a really hardcore survival-type game based in the stone age. Not my cup of tea.… Expand
  17. lordpopo
    Jan 8, 2021
    3
    Honestly,if you do not have more than 3-5 friends to play this game with or don't have the time to find a non-toxic tribe in your server,just do not play this game.Singleplayer gets boring after some time because its way too grindy .Its not like minecraft here ypu can cure your boredom all alone without anyone to play with.
    Servers are absolute trash,people are completeley heartless.They    Honestly,if you do not have more than 3-5 friends to play this game with or don't have the time to find a non-toxic tribe in your server,just do not play this game.Singleplayer gets boring after some time because its way too grindy .Its not like minecraft here ypu can cure your boredom all alone without anyone to play with.
    Servers are absolute trash,people are completeley heartless.They won't hesitate the slightest bit to completely destroy and loot months and weeks of your progress,leaving you no choice but to start from scratch only to get looted once again.    … Expand
  18. TiredAlfred
    Dec 29, 2021
    3
    tranded on the shores of a mysterious island, you must learn to survive. Use your cunning to kill or tame the primeval creatures roaming the land, and encounter other players to survive, dominate... and escape.
  19. Recepsamet
    Nov 22, 2021
    3
    oyunda çok fazla bug var çok fazla sayıda bağlantı sorunları oluyor bide bunla beraber optimize sıkıntılar var bide oyun çok büyük bir alan kaplıyor cidden!! 170 gb nedir cidden evt oyunu arkadaşlarınız ile oynarsanız çok iyi sarar ama cidden oyuna mod kurmadan zar zor keyif alabiliyorsunuz demem o şekilde bende keyif alabildim taki bilmediğim bir şekilde 1 yıllık save im silindiği zamanoyunda çok fazla bug var çok fazla sayıda bağlantı sorunları oluyor bide bunla beraber optimize sıkıntılar var bide oyun çok büyük bir alan kaplıyor cidden!! 170 gb nedir cidden evt oyunu arkadaşlarınız ile oynarsanız çok iyi sarar ama cidden oyuna mod kurmadan zar zor keyif alabiliyorsunuz demem o şekilde bende keyif alabildim taki bilmediğim bir şekilde 1 yıllık save im silindiği zaman evet bu oyunda nedense bazen save ler silinebiliyor bu yüzden bu oyun düşük puan vericem ve verdimde… Expand
  20. Glack
    Dec 5, 2021
    3
    Игра имеет больше минусов чем плюсов.
    Первое-это оптимизация. Про нормальный фпс в этой игре вы можете забыть. Что бы играть на максималках нужно иметь как минимум 2080. Если играть в соло на своем сервере.э, то впринципе еще кое-как играбильно. Но если вы хотите поиграть на серверах я вам соболезную.
    Пинг на серверах ужасный. Попадания(если попасть вообще возможно) регестрируются секунд    Игра имеет больше минусов чем плюсов.
    Первое-это оптимизация. Про нормальный фпс в этой игре вы можете забыть. Что бы играть на максималках нужно иметь как минимум 2080. Если играть в соло на своем сервере.э, то впринципе еще кое-как играбильно. Но если вы хотите поиграть на серверах я вам соболезную.
    Пинг на серверах ужасный. Попадания(если попасть вообще возможно) регестрируются секунд через 5 после выстрела. Осявещение часто багается. Довольно часто можно зайти в текстуры.
    Что же у нас с рейдами? А с ними все плохо. Даже если вы построите форт с защитой как у пентагона, то все равно прилетит какой-нибудь китаец на моногарме и снесет за 10 секунж и всю вашу базу, и всех ваших динозавров. Будь у вас хоть 200 слоев стен в доме и по всему периметру будут стоять турели, это вас не спасет. Даже в RUST или Unturned рейды будут и то лучше, чем в арке.
    Так что прежде чем купить игру, или хотя бы заходить на сервера, почитайте не накрученые отзывы.    … Expand
  21. AlexMakesToast
    Jan 1, 2023
    3
    Ark = 3/10
    ................................................................
  22. ScienceAdvisor
    Sep 14, 2018
    2
    The devs are ignoring legacy issues (many, many bugs) to churn out DLC for even more money. If the DLC contained even a few fixes for the base game, it would be somewhat acceptable, however all the DLC does is introduce more bugs, increase grind time, and insult your intelligence. The official servers are toxic, as are the forums, with people who have spent thousands of hours in thisThe devs are ignoring legacy issues (many, many bugs) to churn out DLC for even more money. If the DLC contained even a few fixes for the base game, it would be somewhat acceptable, however all the DLC does is introduce more bugs, increase grind time, and insult your intelligence. The official servers are toxic, as are the forums, with people who have spent thousands of hours in this "game", and are rationalizing that it must be good for that reason alone. It could not be that they were suckered into paying $60 for something that should still be considered Early Access, and cannot afford another game. The best legacy bug is still the disappearing Dino that you spent a hundred of hours grinding for (no exaggeration), only to log in and find out it glitched so hard the server wiped it. Also be warned that this is one of "those" games where you will spend an ungodly amount of time reading a wiki to learn how to do anything. Of course if you do this you will learn all the gimmicks built into the game that defy logic and allow you to become OP, at least until the bugs catch up and smack you back to your starting point, or you try an official server and lose everything in a raid while offline when the attacker utilize one of the many glitches to bypass your defenses.

    Most of the game design seems to have be the by committee version, but then they apparently wrote all the ideas and put them in a hat. For some reason though, they only drew 80% of them back out. So nothing ever seems completely thought out, or well implemented. Tiny animals drop items 3X their size, or magic being prevalent on one map, tech on another, with no explanations to cover the gap considering this is supposedly all the same planet.

    At this point it seems that this has become a dump project, where adding random ideas to continue pushing new DLC is their only goal. For this reason this is not worth getting until they patch the major legacy bugs (clipping X 100), if ever. This also extends to their new game, which is likely going to suffer from the same issues in management and quality control. You also need to factor in the server costs, DLC costs, and that unless you want to be at a sever disadvantage, you will need at least three friends to play with. There is virtually no story, so you need to do a lot of role playing. You will also need to get used to the fact that the devs assumed you would min-max with the wiki knowledge, so they spawn a tonne of animals together that mostly only want to eat you. Immersion is not one of their goals, just making as much money as possible, in the shortest amount of time, with the least amount of work.    … Expand
  23. js17
    Sep 3, 2017
    2
    the worse support ever. Bunch of players can't connect to the game for a day, and no single word from support.
    lots of bugs.
    toxic community.
    at release - just a queue simulator.
  24. Kayla45
    Sep 8, 2017
    2
    Ark Survival Evolved:
    I have finally decided to review this game after 8400+ hours of gameplay in early access mode.
    Positives: The game is a great idea. The way the game begins is tough… I mean really tough. It is a challenge to get started and anyone without any patience is going to struggle but I do have patience and to me the hard difficulty of this game was a real refreshing eye    Ark Survival Evolved:
    I have finally decided to review this game after 8400+ hours of gameplay in early access mode.

    Positives:
    The game is a great idea. The way the game begins is tough… I mean really tough. It is a challenge to get started and anyone without any patience is going to struggle but I do have patience and to me the hard difficulty of this game was a real refreshing eye opener… but be warned it is not for the feint hearted. The best part of the game is the idea that you can breed your dinosaurs. This has been implemented in a really interesting way, where you can pool your breeding into achievable goals and breed out your favourite dinosaurs to have the stats that you have always wanted… but all this comes after you have set up a kibble base, and tamed great level versions of your favourite dinosaurs. I personally play on PVE and as you can see, for over 8K hours I have had a great deal of fun and I have met some fantastic friends in the community… This ought to be a great game, but there is another side to it that I have to address…

    Negatives:
    I am so sad to say this, because I have put so much effort into playing this game legitimately and have done my best to help create a wonderful community and support network on a great PVE server… however, the developers of the game have treated us long serving players with utter contempt. We have been completely mistreated, taken for granted, unrewarded, lied to, mis-sold to… under a cloak of awful communication and absolutely brutal and dire decisions that have kicked the games player base in the teeth. The scenario now is that the devs were going to cull the lowest 10% of ghost servers… and instead have decided to wipe over 33% of servers with medium traffic to consolidate their server lists and re-use these to plonk new servers on that do not have the same issues that the old servers had, and then to cap it all, any support for the old servers and the long serving players who play on those servers is to be canned so that we are on our own if we lose a character or experience any technical issues… This is a huge let down of the Ark gaming community, and sadly it is pretty irrelevant, because any support I have needed in my 8K+ hours has been utterly non-existent anyway. I reported a serious harassment case and followed every single instruction to the letter, and no action was taken against the wrong-doers. This was a shameful let down and completely spoiled my enjoyment of the game… The devs carried on doing little tiny favours for a select few gamers whilst most tickets were left completely unattended. I have colleagues who lost their level 100 character in transit and not a single effort to answer the ticket was made, that was over 2 months ago now. The sad truth is, that this team of developers and community managers, is sadly the most useless and incompetent and uncaring team that I have ever experienced in a game… so if you have any issues playing this game… do not even bother to report it… nothing will be done… this Dev team do not care. They care that they receive your money… they will go on to look after the new servers and make things look as though they are prepared to provide support there… but it is as many things are in ark… it is lies and false promises.

    Conclusion:
    This game had SO much going for it… it was a fantastic idea but the execution of the game and the choices made by the developers has left a bruised gaming community feeling ripped off and mistreated, un-respected and un-supported… and sadly their actions and incompetence in how they run their business has led to this review being a vote of no confidence. The way the legacy servers are setup now means that over-time the old servers will lose players and get wiped, so either old players stick around on current servers and wait for the server to die, or we start afresh on a new server and wait to be lied to and sit having no confidence that one day these new servers wont be wiped themselves… and that is the finding of this review… that ultimately, there is no point in playing this game, because it provides 10% fun, 80% grief and trolling and a final 10% of crying into your coffee as you hope your dino baby survives over the next ridiculously badly timed update that takes away something else that used to be a good idea.

    Do not buy this game… do not play this game… go and play something similar where the developers actually deserve your money.    … Expand
  25. Gruber
    Sep 13, 2017
    2
    Great game, so much that you can do, riding a dino, create your own base, exchange, selling or buying dino's. But with poor support, all the issue you get after every new update, they dont listen to your question, sending a ticket, but answer is that they dont tread it,where it sometimes takes hours before you can on a server where your base and dino's are, there are more issue, but theGreat game, so much that you can do, riding a dino, create your own base, exchange, selling or buying dino's. But with poor support, all the issue you get after every new update, they dont listen to your question, sending a ticket, but answer is that they dont tread it,where it sometimes takes hours before you can on a server where your base and dino's are, there are more issue, but the issues destroy the fun for this beautyfull game.… Expand
  26. ManChile
    Jun 2, 2018
    2
    A broken time sink of a game, a grind with no payoff. Your biggest enemy in the game isn't the dinosaurs; it's the poor optimization, unreliable servers, rushed content, and the developers themselves.

    Bumping the price from $30 to $60 for the "official release" without fixing anything beforehand is criminal. Three years after initial launch, this game shouldn't be considered as anything    A broken time sink of a game, a grind with no payoff. Your biggest enemy in the game isn't the dinosaurs; it's the poor optimization, unreliable servers, rushed content, and the developers themselves.

    Bumping the price from $30 to $60 for the "official release" without fixing anything beforehand is criminal. Three years after initial launch, this game shouldn't be considered as anything more than a mess of an early access title, as it's still needing constant updates. The developers are unprofessional and have been known to ban players that raid clans that have devs as members. They ban players for playing by the rules of their own game, no glitches or cheats required. They wiped the servers of everyone who played for the first 2 years to make room for the new customers for the "official release". They released new maps before they even had skyboxes, textures, proper collisions, or working servers.

    The only redeemable thing about this chore of a game is the variety of creatures and the animations for them. Regardless if you'll play single player or multiplayer, avoid this game, and don't support it either. This is coming from a longtime player of the game.    … Expand
  27. Yelov
    Jul 22, 2018
    2
    One of the biggest purchase regrets. Game runs like complete **** and for me it's not fun at all. Maybe someone will find this genre interesting, but ugh.
  28. subjectshadow
    Jun 13, 2020
    2
    TLDR: This game is fundamentally flawed. It does everything to prevent you from enjoying it. It doesn’t allow you to explore, while making exploration mandatory. If you want to play this: don’t play it alone, you’ll be in for a bad time.

    So I just received this game for free on Epic Games Store like many other people and as a fan of the survival game-genre (with base building, crafting    TLDR: This game is fundamentally flawed. It does everything to prevent you from enjoying it. It doesn’t allow you to explore, while making exploration mandatory. If you want to play this: don’t play it alone, you’ll be in for a bad time.

    So I just received this game for free on Epic Games Store like many other people and as a fan of the survival game-genre (with base building, crafting and so on) I have looked at this game many times and found it interesting. But the fact that this is an MMO has always be off-putting for me because I simply don't like that genre all that much, I am more of a lone wolf when it comes to those kind of games, a coop-guy with friends at best.

    But getting this game for free I wanted to give it a shot since it CAN be played in single player as well. But as you can see with my rating: it's a horrible experience since it's fundamentally flawed. And after reading some reviews here where most of the high-rating critics wrote something like "You just have to learn how to play and git gud" I thought I'd give you my opposing impression, because those guys are blinded fanboys, nothing more.

    As I said, this game is fundamentally flawed and you start to realize that pretty early on. I only played this for 2 hours and while playing the only thing I learned from this is that the games doesn't want me to play it.

    A good game is self-explanatory or at least gives you a few guidelines, tutorials, a starting quest or whatever. All of this is absent in this title. There is a guide in the menu that tries to explain the basics but that's it. You get thrown into a world; you have this thing on your arm that seems to indicate some kind of plot but the game never tells you that there is any. You are left with exploring things on your own. And don't get me wrong: I like that. I am not criticizing the fact that this game has either no story or wants you to find it. I am in fact a huge fan of 7 Days to Die which does it in a similar way, but at least in 7 Days to Die you get an incentive: After 7 days you are overrun by Zombies. ARK has nothing of the sorts. It gives you an open space, lots of wood, stone, plants and dinos obviously and that's it. I think that's a bit lackluster but alright, I can get past that. My problem is a different one:
    So you find yourself in this vast but seemingly empty world to explore but the game PUNISHES you for exploring it. After setting up a small camp somewhere I started exploring only to be 2-shotted by the first bigger dino I encountered. That in itself wouldn't be too bad if you wouldn't lose ALL OF YOUR INVENTORY. But where most games (like Terraria or 7 Days to Die btw) offer you the option to turn this off, ARK has NONE of the sorts (there are options before starting the game, but this missing, you can however install a mod to fix this, but honestly? This shouldn’t be fixed by a mod…)! Your stuff lies around where you die so that you can pick it up but that means that you either have to run back to your corpse which is tedious or you leave your stuff behind and craft/gather everything you had anew which is also tedious! And even if you try to get your stuff back, chances are that you just die again and again and again, every time since you respawn with NOTHING and whatever killed you will probably just linger around the place where it killed you anyway. And it's not that this happened in a high-level zone. I started in the easiest zone I was offered. The enemies were level 2! But that seemingly doesn't matter in this game because they just either kill you in an instant or withing a few seconds anyway! Normally I would just avoid said area and explore somewhere else, but then again: what to do about the stuff you lost? You can easily see that this is bad design.

    And so you are left with the question: What to do in this game? And the only real answer is: Uninstall it and play something else because: You can only craft that much and crafting because boring after a while as well. So you want to start exploring but that only leads to you getting killed all the time because out of nowhere raptors jump in your face and kill you before you can even draw your weapon or turn around. And besides that: I am not sure if the game even offers you something for exploring it's world. I doubt that you can find weapons, armor or tools lying around.

    I mean: I guess it's an MMO in the first place and I am at fault here for trying to play it alone. But honestly? Why would I invest any kind of money into this game when it only offers player interaction, where non is wanted? If you want this as a single player experience: Don't waste your money, don't waste your nerves.

    And for those you write stuff like “git gud”: That’s not how a game should be designed. Also: How will you ever learn to play a game, when said game does everything in it’s power to stop you from learning it? This is bad design so stop defending it and face the truth.    … Expand
  29. DobbleU
    Jun 15, 2020
    2
    I played the game because it was free in Epic Store.
    I am totally stunned that this game is sold for real money over the rest of the year.
    It is full of Bugs and the biggest problem is the server performance. Laggs out of hell. On top of that it is full of people who kill you with a one shot for no reason. I played it for a few hours on different servers and it was just disgusting    I played the game because it was free in Epic Store.
    I am totally stunned that this game is sold for real money over the rest of the year.
    It is full of Bugs and the biggest problem is the server performance. Laggs out of hell.
    On top of that it is full of people who kill you with a one shot for no reason.

    I played it for a few hours on different servers and it was just disgusting

    The idea of the game seems great because of that it gets 2 points.
    But the technical Status of the Game is dreadful.
    I am angry that there are people who earn their money with this Alpha Version of a Game.

    Btw, i own a High End Gaming PC, because of that i am sure that my PC is not the problem.

    I really would like to give it a bad review on Epic Store but they don't give us the chance....    … Expand
  30. havrillal
    Aug 18, 2020
    2
    Túlértékelt, túlbonyolitott, érektelen, bugos, irritáló szenvedés az egész játék. Mellesleg mi ez az ár? Ennyiért nagyon nem éri meg
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Awards & Rankings

22
#22 Most Discussed PC Game of 2017
72
#72 Most Shared PC Game of 2017

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
70

Mixed or average reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 18
  3. Negative: 0 out of 18
  1. PC PowerPlay
    Nov 12, 2017
    70
    Specialises in trick shots before mastering the fundamentals. Deeply flawed, but hard to ignore. [Issue#267, p.58]
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  2. DarkStation
    Oct 9, 2017
    70
    Like so many survival/crafting games, from Minecraft to Subnautica, ARK presupposes a player with a lot of time to dedicate to the experience, a high tolerance for repetition, and a fondness for chaos and the unexpected. With its sci-fi inflected single player campaign, ARK at least offers a solo player the chance to get the gist of the game without the threat of anti-social humans ruining whatever progress has been made. For the past two years, ARK has been helping to shape the genre and now that it's finished, it feels like the genre is due for the next stage of evolution.
    Read full review
  3. Games Master UK
    Oct 6, 2017
    85
    It'll delight you, it'll make you despair, but ultimately Ark will leave you with a real sense of satisfaction. [Nov 2017, p.76]
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