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

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. PrincessRose
    Jun 12, 2022
    6
    I love building, exploring, discovering, taming and breeding dinosaurs. The details and variety of dinosaurs is amazing and how each of them offers something to help you out. Such as brontosaurus is very good for berry gathering and is good to take with you as they can carry so much. I've only played single player.

    I like the primitive style game play and dislike tek and how you can    I love building, exploring, discovering, taming and breeding dinosaurs. The details and variety of dinosaurs is amazing and how each of them offers something to help you out. Such as brontosaurus is very good for berry gathering and is good to take with you as they can carry so much. I've only played single player.

    I like the primitive style game play and dislike tek and how you can eventually use electricity.

    Though this game is not suitable for those who expect a game to tell you what to do and where to go, the freedom it offers is good. It does get quite boring there ends up not much to do besides breeding dinosaurs to eventually fight bosses. There is no NPC's or quests and the only way to get the story is through the notes you find in the world. I just feel bored and don't feel there is enough variety in what you can do in single player.

    This game needs a good PC to be able to play, but even so it is poorly optimised and takes up a lot of space. I always make sure my drivers are up to date so wondered why I was all of a sudden getting a freeze with fatal error report. I verified files and it said 2 files were missing and they were being restored. I have no idea what would of caused that and after that the game is running fine again. This game is really annoying it occasionally has errors and ends up with missing files. You often have to spend time verifying files. And also have problem where the sound cuts out completely even though the sound still works when testing a you tube video and then have to verify files which then says 2 files are missing.
    I found the problem was that my power supply was dying and finally carked it.

    So far since playing Ark I've had to buy a new SSD and get and power supply.

    Since being poorly optimised it makes your PC work very hard it may make your PC components die quicker. So play at your own risk.
    Ark is now free which they could at least offer the DLC at 50% off for current owners. Genesis is still only 34% off.

    The game is fun but also frustrating with all the problems it seems to have.
    I have mixed feelings about the game I love it but also hate it and not sure it's worth recommending as a game should not be so problematic.    … Expand
  2. SuperkenGaming
    Aug 31, 2017
    6
    ARK Survival Evolved
    Theres something here, but its half baked
    ARK Survival Evolved is out of BETA, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite feel like it.. Fair Warning im awful at survival games and they don’t keep my attention for long…so if youre looking for an in depth review on all the survival stuff, youre not going to get it here, As a casual survival game fan, Ark survival is    ARK Survival Evolved
    Theres something here, but its half baked
    ARK Survival Evolved is out of BETA, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite feel like it..
    Fair Warning im awful at survival games and they don’t keep my attention for long…so if youre looking for an in depth review on all the survival stuff, youre not going to get it here,
    As a casual survival game fan, Ark survival is probably the most half baked one ive played..
    The hardest part of this game is actually getting into a server…
    the server numbers don’t make sense as there are some with numbers way over the limit and others that say they are under the limit until you try to join it..
    but once you do find a server, this server is basically your home unless you want a fresh start..
    There are 2 modes you can play in… one having modern technology and one focusing on just primitive technology, but you choose an area to spawn in at ..all with different difficulties with your fresh character and you get to surviving…
    |Knowing how to survive is one thing..
    knowing how the game works is another because this post beta game has no proper tutorial to teach you the game. I had to go to youtube to learn how to pick up stones, im not even joking…
    I found myself doing this a lot when I ran into questions like how to tame a dinosaur..
    oh did I forget to mention dinosaurs..
    theres dinosaurs…
    This game is full of them but theyre not as cool as I thought they would be..
    Theyre essentially jerks that try to kill you while you collect sticks rocks and berries… .
    the game is a pretty steady evolution of equipment which is cool..
    youll level up as you craft, collect, and hunt.. and you can dump skill points into stats but you can also learn how to craft new items like fires to cook raw meat.. btw another youtube trip.. how do you start a fire…
    the higher level you are the better items you can craft and the better dinosaurs you can tame, ill save you the trip.;. you beat them until theyre unconscious and throw a saddle on them,...
    But as a survival game you have to manage your health, hydration, hunger, and body temperature…
    This is done by collecting berries, building shelter, hunting animals with the weapons you craft, or going for a swim..
    this was the coolest part is how easy not dying of thirst is here…
    finaly a survival game gets it.. let me just drown myself until im not thirsty anymore..
    it works in this game as it should…
    but there are pvp and pve servers.. there are other people running around, theyl lbuild huts and fires too, these items cant be destroyed as youre able to lock them, but you can squad up and join tribes.. or be a lone wolf like me cause youre awesome at surviving and you don’t need a tribe…
    theres no real task here… its just dumb fun of running around a map and try to build the coolest stuff you can, sort of like minecraft with none of the fun stuff but with dinosaurs…
    which again are here to kill you…
    when you die you have all of your blueprints and levels… and youre able to rush to your dead body fr your gear if you can remember where you died at.. but other players can pick your gear too so good luck…
    I see the good in this game, I can understand why people love it and how they can have fun within its world…
    of creating your own survival goals and setting out to accomplish them..
    but it’s a half baked game that still feels as though its in beta…
    I cant argue that this game isn’t fun.. but I can argue that there are plenty of better more polished survival games out there on console
    I give ARK Survival Evolved
    a 6/10    … Expand
  3. thedesertwolf
    Aug 29, 2017
    6
    The good: There is a lot going on for ark survival evolved, ranging from desperate early game attempts to avoid the worst of the small game such as raptors and trodons to the gradual progression towards building massive bases made of high tech materials at end game. There is a ton to do, from the survival notes hidden throughout the islands giving a glimpse at a much larger story to a tonThe good: There is a lot going on for ark survival evolved, ranging from desperate early game attempts to avoid the worst of the small game such as raptors and trodons to the gradual progression towards building massive bases made of high tech materials at end game. There is a ton to do, from the survival notes hidden throughout the islands giving a glimpse at a much larger story to a ton of interesting and neat dinosaur specific features. Wall climbers, gliders, and gryphon's oh my!

    The bad: That said, those that know the grind, and it is exactly that, a grind, get a massive advantage over others. With the full release, a slew of unfinished or unoptimized performance issues still remain from it's open development such as horrid hitbox detection, under the map exploits, and many of the dinosaurs do not serve a long term purpose in the game. It's a race to 4-5 dinosaurs for the pvp end with there being significant overlap into the pve side.

    The Ugly: Studio Wildcard has left in numerous unfinished or outright broken features. There are still clipping issues with structures that were not addressed in the beta, the incorporation of cluster servers means that every server will either be a fiefdom of a mega-tribe or will be merrily wiped for amusements sake whenever boredom strikes, the grind and timesink factor is still Korean MMO level of bad, and opening the servers for free access to the Asian marketplace is going to go over as it always does, poorly, as the cultural differences between what is acceptable gaming behavior between west and east is not compatible.

    It has potential, but Ark survival evolved shoots itself in the foot over and over again in favor of grind over engaging gameplay and puts a heavy prioritization on shoot first, ask questions never on their official servers.    … Expand
  4. Dinoh
    Mar 20, 2020
    6
    Well it is not the most polished game, or the most accurate scientifically...but Ark, does something that no other can: make survive in a island more fun than anybody can spect, than anybody can, due to that i cannot wait to play again...one of the most interesting games i have played, and i have played games since the 2000...there is a great amount of **** survivals outside, and at leastWell it is not the most polished game, or the most accurate scientifically...but Ark, does something that no other can: make survive in a island more fun than anybody can spect, than anybody can, due to that i cannot wait to play again...one of the most interesting games i have played, and i have played games since the 2000...there is a great amount of **** survivals outside, and at least this covers some of the main fails those have. Of course it cannot fight with Subnautica or others, but remember they are different knid of survival.

    BUT if you have serious doubts to play it i want to tell that despite my first positive opinion, it has really a big amount of bugs, and it is not friendly with the optimization, for that, i reccomend to you to see you specs and test different gameplays online (Beware, there are a lot biased!!) after go for it. Sadly it also has a lot of tier-bully clans, that would abuse you online, making competitive PVE a pain in the ass.

    Is Bad? No Is Good? Decent. I can reccommend it 100%? No. What i reccomend is to serach for the late updates & work of the Devs on the game, also the lattest non Biased opinions of the community.

    The last thing towarn about it that the Devs are really retarded for a lot of things, but specially customers treathment, so ignore their **** I understand people that left the game due to them.    … Expand
  5. Alzz
    Nov 13, 2017
    6
    Let me start with this: This game really is great. It's definitely worth giving a shot. But of course it's not perfect. I can't describe what it is, but something feels clunky. When you first join, you really have to learn for yourself, which is sometimes good, but most of the time can be annoying. The community is better than a lot of survival games, but still isn't perfect. But of courseLet me start with this: This game really is great. It's definitely worth giving a shot. But of course it's not perfect. I can't describe what it is, but something feels clunky. When you first join, you really have to learn for yourself, which is sometimes good, but most of the time can be annoying. The community is better than a lot of survival games, but still isn't perfect. But of course no community can be perfect. ARK has a wide variety of things to craft, and so many things to discover. There's so much fun to be had with all the unique types of dinosaurs scattered across the large world. One big flaw I have with this game is what the devs have done to it. So many changes have been made, and causes it to be unbalanced at times. If the devs could go back to the older style of the game, I think this game would be a much bigger success than it is right now. Again, this game isn't perfect, but is definitely worth a shot.… Expand
  6. Taylord99
    Aug 12, 2018
    6
    I would be lying if I told you I don't have an absolute blast while playing Ark. The game's mechanics and progression system are very well done and almost everything you do gives you a great sense of accomplishment. However, at times, it feels like there is little to do in Ark. At times I ask myself, "what now?" After getting far in the game, there isn't nearly as much to do as there is inI would be lying if I told you I don't have an absolute blast while playing Ark. The game's mechanics and progression system are very well done and almost everything you do gives you a great sense of accomplishment. However, at times, it feels like there is little to do in Ark. At times I ask myself, "what now?" After getting far in the game, there isn't nearly as much to do as there is in the beginning and at times I feel quite bored. Plus, the game is very poorly optimized on PC and even with a GTX 1070, I need to play on medium settings at 4K to even hope to get a stable 60 FPS. To add insult to injury, the game crashes at random, sometimes at the most inopportune times possible, often resulting in death. Overall, this game is incredibly fun at short bursts with incredibly diverse and gigantic worlds with interesting dinosaurs, but it is also a buggy and poorly optimized mess that can also be boring at times.… Expand
  7. KepasaAmigo
    Jul 16, 2021
    6
    A bit laggy. and its survival game that i dont really like so lets give it 6/10. got like 2hours in that and wont ever come back
  8. storygamer
    Sep 15, 2020
    6
    Ark: Survival Evolved has tons of great ideas. The graphics are beautiful and the gameplay is real fun if you like survival games. But you need a lot of time for crafting and dinosaur education. And if you´re willing to spend this time, it will satisfy you in many moments. The only problem is, that it always stays repetitive. Also, Ark has some serious technical problems. I got it free onArk: Survival Evolved has tons of great ideas. The graphics are beautiful and the gameplay is real fun if you like survival games. But you need a lot of time for crafting and dinosaur education. And if you´re willing to spend this time, it will satisfy you in many moments. The only problem is, that it always stays repetitive. Also, Ark has some serious technical problems. I got it free on Epic, but as a full prized title it´s too mediocre.… Expand
  9. Kuzya_Zeleniy
    Nov 3, 2022
    6
    I had no interest in this game. But when Epic Games gave it away for free, I decided to play it.
    What how Ark differs from other survivors. Of course, the interaction of dinosaurs. I think this is the main feature of the game. We can hunt them, we can tame them, and we can even mate them. And these things are really interesting to do.
    But there are also disadvantages. The optimization    I had no interest in this game. But when Epic Games gave it away for free, I decided to play it.
    What how Ark differs from other survivors. Of course, the interaction of dinosaurs. I think this is the main feature of the game. We can hunt them, we can tame them, and we can even mate them. And these things are really interesting to do.
    But there are also disadvantages. The optimization here is not the best. The game can display 60 fps on an average computer. But there are setbacks that do not depend on anything. Also, the battles don't look the best.
    But the main disadvantage is its size. If you calculate it with all additions, it will be 400 GB. 400 GB!?
    But overall the game is not bad. Fans of survival games will like it very much. But be prepared that it will be difficult for you to understand all the mechanics of the game at the beginning.    … Expand
  10. aesirus96
    Aug 15, 2023
    6
    Indo direto ao ponto: o jogo é bugado, principalmente no coop, mas isso não faz ele não ser divertido. A comunidade é bacana, os servidores não oficiais são bons (exceto no quesito conexão, quero dizer na experiência no geral) e a gameplay, mesmo que seja repetitiva, não chega a ser maçante. Com amigos vale a pena, sozinho não sei dizer.
  11. Reeeee
    Nov 22, 2017
    5
    No no. This is not how to develop a good game. The gameplay is slow and boring. Sure there are dinosaurs but i dont like them. I dont even know why i bought this game. Lol
  12. CapedBat
    May 16, 2019
    5
    Not recommending on grounds of strange business practices and awful balance. If you love survival games you'll enjoy it, but there are better, more optimized games out there.
  13. VoltronGuy
    Apr 10, 2020
    5
    ARK: Survival Evolved is not something to say it's good. It starts off like it's going to be a fun game, but as you progress, it gets quite boring. 50/50 game that is not worth paying for.
  14. quietgrave
    Aug 20, 2021
    5
    An amazing game overseen by narcissistic nihilists that want nothing to do with it. Good gameplay when everything works right, although there are a LOT of concessions made in terms of its stability. The best way this game can be described is that it's sardines: An acquired taste you either love or hate, if you haven't fallen in love by the 2-hour mark, refund it. The support for the gameAn amazing game overseen by narcissistic nihilists that want nothing to do with it. Good gameplay when everything works right, although there are a LOT of concessions made in terms of its stability. The best way this game can be described is that it's sardines: An acquired taste you either love or hate, if you haven't fallen in love by the 2-hour mark, refund it. The support for the game is circling the drain, soon its only official servers will be basic PvE. The developers will abandon it like they've done with literally every other game they've ever made.… Expand
  15. wolfnet18
    Jun 12, 2023
    5
    I have to give ark a down the middle review.

    Graphics are nice The number of different dinosaurs is amazing. There are different maps to explore What hurts this game is the optimization. Single player is fine, but multiplayer, especially if you dont buy a server hurts a lot. Tether distance is something that should have never existed in the game, and all players getting pulled to    I have to give ark a down the middle review.

    Graphics are nice
    The number of different dinosaurs is amazing.
    There are different maps to explore

    What hurts this game is the optimization. Single player is fine, but multiplayer, especially if you dont buy a server hurts a lot. Tether distance is something that should have never existed in the game, and all players getting pulled to someone just because they flew over or entered a cave "forces" you to buy a server or play online with friends. Unfortunately that is where things go downhill because there is currently a lot of controversy against the devs closing down servers, and even banning a lot of players. The game also still suffers from bugs that have existed for years and havent been fixed either because they cant or just choose not to.

    If you love dinosaurs, and breeding and raising them, building bases and what not, and are looking to play solo, pick this up. If you're ok with playing this online, and logging in one day to potentially everything just not being there it still might work for you, otherwise i'd probably wait a few years, and see if Ark2 fixes anything.    … Expand
  16. 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
  17. 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
  18. 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
  19. 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
  20. 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
  21. 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
  22. 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
  23. 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
  24. 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
  25. 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
  26. 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
  27. 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
  28. 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
  29. 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.
  30. 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!
Page:

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]
    Read full review
  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]
See all critic reviews »