ARK: Survival Evolved

 Xbox One
User Score
6.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 120 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 57 out of 120
  2. Mixed: 27 out of 120
  3. Negative: 36 out of 120
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  1. BigBear94
    Sep 24, 2017
    1
    I tried really hard to enjoy this game, but after a week its ultimate fate is to go back to the retail shelf it came from. Why? Well unlike most people, I don't care about the bugs. Logging in and being stuck in your floor for a few minutes? Okay, whatever, I can deal. Good dinos take literally 4+ hours to tame? Okay, whatever, I can deal. What ultimately made me give up on thisI tried really hard to enjoy this game, but after a week its ultimate fate is to go back to the retail shelf it came from. Why? Well unlike most people, I don't care about the bugs. Logging in and being stuck in your floor for a few minutes? Okay, whatever, I can deal. Good dinos take literally 4+ hours to tame? Okay, whatever, I can deal. What ultimately made me give up on this potentially great game is the pure unoptimized performance. This is highlighted most when a small, fast dinosaur attacks. In more than one instance I was ambushed by raptors, and found myself unable to even fight back due to the serious framerate drops from the raptor attacks. Not only was this utterly pointless, but the lag inherent on all servers means you'll fire an arrow and get a sweet headshot on your screen and.... no hit marker, because the raptor is actually 12 feet away and you're attacking the air. To test this out, I managed to get more than 20 arrows stuck in a Dodo without it actually registering ANY damage.

    On top of all this, it feels entirely unfinished and NOT ready for retail audiences given the fact there is no intro whatsoever. Even the single player mode just drops you into the world without so much as a quick rundown of your UI, or how to do anything. Wanna tame a dino? Good luck figuring out what you're meant to do within the confines of the game. It doesn't tell you ANYWHERE! Sure, the game has been in early access for a considerable amount of time so many people know what they're doing. But this isn't the target audience of having your product on retail shelves.

    At the end of the day, this game is utterly unplayable in my opinion. Framerates drop the moment anything happens, the bugs will constantly bring down your experience, and you should probably expect to spend more time on Google and Youtube finding out what the hell you're doing than actually playing the game.

    Disclaimer: I know unofficial servers and player dedicated servers are out there. With that said, I paid the full retail price for this game, so I expect that the developers have their game complete enough and with enough tweaks that it's not utter crap on their servers. I was VERY wrong. Sadly, if you want to enjoy this game, you must abandon the official servers for unofficial, and that's not something I think should be expected of a game that is selling at full retail as a "complete game".

    And don't even get me started on all the tribes that treat this game like a job, and will literally turn it from a video game into a scheduled part time job. Sheesh guys.    … Expand
  2. DisturbedKarma
    Sep 16, 2017
    0
    100+ GB of bugs. I really wish I could say something nice about this game, had tons of potential, but the game is awful, and the company is even worse. Constant lies to players, broken promises, the list goes forever.
  3. Crackerjackx13
    Sep 14, 2017
    0
    OFFICIAL SERVER REVIEW - If you are looking for Fair and Balance PvP, play a different game. Lack of Security. Other players Doxxing enemy player and tribes in world chat with their private information, people Dossing official servers to roll back if under attack or to duplicate items, God tames(not normally spawned tames) put in by admins, Duplicating Items and selling them or basesOFFICIAL SERVER REVIEW - If you are looking for Fair and Balance PvP, play a different game. Lack of Security. Other players Doxxing enemy player and tribes in world chat with their private information, people Dossing official servers to roll back if under attack or to duplicate items, God tames(not normally spawned tames) put in by admins, Duplicating Items and selling them or bases through pay pal for real $$$1000's going to who knows, People wiping you from under the map, the list goes on, Theses are facts and issues the Ark Devs have yet to deal with or even try to address with over 2 years of development. There is a lack of security features or oversight to prevent this the issues persist just read the forums to hear some of the horror stories,

    Further more the developers over the course of 2 years instead of dealing with the many bugs and glitches rather keep rolling out more content rather then fix the bugs or issues with the game. My guess is to either to drown out the voices of those that speak up about some of the issues stated above or gain more revenue needed to fix the issues or for a new game they are working on.

    Most of the community will not touch official servers now because of theses many issues unaddressed and will to player dedicated servers sadily, all anyone had to do before the offical release was to take a look at the player count on the offical servers, most were 30-40 out of 100 players at most for a reason, just ask any of the regular players.

    ontop of that, the balancing of the game was not in favor of smaller tribes or the new player, but the no lifer who neglected life family, friends, jobs, etc and put everything into the "grind of ego and things" understand that alot of people on official servers would inside/betray player/tribes consistently because the value of things and ego out weighed the value of people, the primal cancer of the community thrives. There is no Fair, there is no balance.

    In regards to real life fall outs from this game, some people have even killed themselves, lost there job, got divorced, domestic abuse, all because of the stress and isolation this game can cause, read the forums.you have been warned. I'm going to be honest, After Doing The Mega Alpha Server list(see the ark forums xbox strategy or reddit) for xbox legacy servers, and playing for 108 days, i have seen it all. play a different game..    … Expand
  4. Hornwalker
    Nov 28, 2017
    4
    This is the worst game that I've sunk hundreds of hours into. The only reason I've sunk hundreds of hours into is because I play with a couple of friends. The game is a great concept, poorly executed. And rather than fix the problems that exist(broken networking being #1 up there), they would rather make paid DLC.

    My wife calls it the pooping game, which is pretty great. But there    This is the worst game that I've sunk hundreds of hours into. The only reason I've sunk hundreds of hours into is because I play with a couple of friends. The game is a great concept, poorly executed. And rather than fix the problems that exist(broken networking being #1 up there), they would rather make paid DLC.

    My wife calls it the pooping game, which is pretty great. But there is nothing polished about this steaming pile of Large Animal Feces.

    However, if you have some friends with a sense of humor who enjoy sinking hundreds of hours into repetitive tasks that start to feel like a second job, this is the game for you!    … Expand
  5. Broyax
    Jul 18, 2018
    1
    Les jeux de survie sont à la mode depuis quelque temps, un principe évidemment séduisant sur le papier mais qui débouche trop souvent sur des baudruches vides, surtout lorsqu'elles sont boulottées par des studios plus ou moins indés, plus ou moins médiocres et incapables.

    Comme le but prioritaire est le multi-joueurs, on y observe avec consternation des mécaniques de grind absolument    Les jeux de survie sont à la mode depuis quelque temps, un principe évidemment séduisant sur le papier mais qui débouche trop souvent sur des baudruches vides, surtout lorsqu'elles sont boulottées par des studios plus ou moins indés, plus ou moins médiocres et incapables.

    Comme le but prioritaire est le multi-joueurs, on y observe avec consternation des mécaniques de grind absolument épouvantables (il faut garder les kévins le plus longtemps possible sur le jeu, les kévins et leurs copains krololol) afin qu'ils achètent les extensions et autres DLC... et continuent de jouer.

    Ark cela dit, est tout-à-fait jouable en solo -et sans connexion aucune- et laisse au joueur unique la liberté de modifier moult paramètres de l'expérience. Hélas, la traduction française a été faite par des amateurs (des "fans") qui n'ont aucune idée de ce qu'ils font et qui auraient mieux fait d'aller cueillir des pâquerettes ou de continuer leur farmage tranquillou.

    Jeu de survie donc mais aussi de "construction" puisqu'on peut construire sa maison et des machins et des trucs mais là encore, il faut farmer les ressources comme un Coréen et apprivoiser ces cons de dinos avec d'autres bidules à farmer : de toute façon, t'as pas le choix, tu descends dans cette putain de mine, tu la fermes et tu bosses 24/7.

    Sur Xbox, il faudra se taper une interface conçue pour le PC, son clavier et sa petite souris mais avec une seule manette en tout et pour tout : on a rarement vu aussi bâclé à cet égard. De toute manière, rien n'est expliqué, ni de près ni de loin : t'as qu'à "survivre"... Et effectivement, le jeu ne va pas survivre bien longtemps dans ces conditions et finir dans les affres de la désinstallation.

    Graphiquement, le jeu n'est pas bien beau malgré une optimisation pour la X mais tourne à peu près correctement. On s'ennuie donc rapidement à refaire la même chose sans arrêt et ce n'est pas l'idée de grinder ces merdes avec des kévins qui va nous rassurer, bien au contraire.

    Voilà, Ark survival n'a pas survécu et comme il est aussi disponible sur galette, c'est chouette : on peut caler des tas de trucs avec. La musique du menu était sympa.    … Expand
  6. JKing04
    Jun 7, 2018
    3
    I really tried to enjoy this game, but the constant bugs, lags, grind and pure **** put me off quick.

    Me and my friends bought this game about a month or 2 ago and at first we were optimistic about it, although the first thing i noticed was the horribles framerate and picture quality. This was the first thing that put me off. After learning the basics, dying and failing many times, we    I really tried to enjoy this game, but the constant bugs, lags, grind and pure **** put me off quick.

    Me and my friends bought this game about a month or 2 ago and at first we were optimistic about it, although the first thing i noticed was the horribles framerate and picture quality. This was the first thing that put me off. After learning the basics, dying and failing many times, we got a small stone base set up near a metal deposit. After a short while we were soon greeted by a naked man with only a club (keep in mind we had metal armour and guns) The first thing i noticed was that the guns feel awful to play with on this game, so hard to aim and hit someone. One of the naked men took 2 shotgun headshots, 3 pistol shots and a longneck rifle shot which on any other game should kill you. But no. The naked man managed to take on 2 fully geared men with rifles with just a club.

    After days of playing, we got into a constant cycle. We would play all day long and build up a medium-sized metal base, and then the next morning wake up to it all gone-nothing left. At first it was frustrating but after this happened a couple times we just got used to it and just dealt with it as best as possible. The game just made us mad and usually causing arguments amongst each other as we kept losing everything after grinding all day. I wanted to love this game so much it made me stay inside day in day out just to try and find a good moment in this game, but there never was. What im getting at is that it became to much of a grind for very little reward or fun.

    The game has been out for just short of a year and bugs and exploits haven't been fixed, the developers are so greedy they would rather put their time into making more dlc than fixing the core game and making it worth the staggering price that it is. I think the skill points system should be completely removed as it makes the game stupid and frustrating. For instance, as i was talking about before, the naked man with a club upgraded nothing but his strength, movement speed and health, which basically meant he ran super quick and was just a bullet sponge and his strength made him kill us or knock us out easily and making it way unfair on us who spent days grinding for the gear that we had. The guns in this game are literally useless.

    The community is SO CANCEROUS. Constant griefers and mic spammers make this game even more annoying, someone can just knock you out and lock you in a cage for HOURS. Or just swing by your base and kill all your pets for NO REASON. Or you would have the alpha tribe sitting outside some poor noobs base all day just door camping him cos they had nothing else better to do.

    The lack of servers on this game make it really unplayable. Here are your choices:
    -Play on official servers where everything is 100 levels above you and kills you instantly
    -Play on 1000x modded servers were everyone has everything and they run around at 90 mph
    All other servers are completely dead which makes it an effort just to find a good server with a decent population.

    One thing that also annoyed me was how difficult the game was to learn. To have to learn how to craft, tame or survive you needed to search around youtube for some crappy tutorial that some 10 yr old made. The game tells you literally nothing on how to survive. You join a server and you are plonked naked on a beach wondering what to do.

    However, the game, on some maps, does take us to some quite unique locations with some nice graphics (on PC) and offers some enjoyment in fighting dinos and the music is pretty fitting and cool for the game that its in aswell as the tribe system, which it does really well unlike other games such as rust ( although rust is way better in my opinion)

    In conclusion, the game is a great concept but excecuted so poorly with bugs, B.S, and because of the fact that you need to play it 24/7. I think the game could be amazing if the devs just put time into fixing the game and not being money whores, but frankly the game has been out for almost a year and nothing about the game has been fixed. I was so dissappointed realising that I had just wasted my money on a game that fooled me with its trailers.
    DONT BUY THIS GAME UNTIL IT IS FIXED    … Expand
  7. hoohoo
    Dec 26, 2020
    1
    Gee. What a waste of bandwidth was this download. No wonder it is available for free. Game started, the sun set immediately and it was pitch black. The menu system is so clearly made for mouse it is horrible to use with xbox controller. This game is a waste of global resources.
  8. Tom1357
    Aug 24, 2020
    1
    How bad is this game? I created this account just to talk about it (lol). The situation: I wanted another split-screen game to play with my eight-year-old son; I read Ark: Survival Evolved, and I had already downloaded it through the Gamepass because it looked cool, I just hadn't played it yet.

    So picture this: we're eager to play, full of excitement, okay, start up the game. First    How bad is this game? I created this account just to talk about it (lol). The situation: I wanted another split-screen game to play with my eight-year-old son; I read Ark: Survival Evolved, and I had already downloaded it through the Gamepass because it looked cool, I just hadn't played it yet.

    So picture this: we're eager to play, full of excitement, okay, start up the game. First problem: how do we play split-screen? Not a huge problem. Split-screen is often a kind of throw-away feature for games that actually do include it, so I don't blame them if it's not a prominent option...But the UI screen just to start a game seems unnecessarily complex, as if they tried to shove 100 options into one screen for no particular reason. I'm a programmer, btw, so this poor starting design already seems unimpressive. Even if a game is complex, there's no reason to overwhelm first-time users with needless options. You want new users to have a clear, quick path to starting the game and learning how to play. Anyway, it turns that to start a split-screen game, you...need to select Single Player. Um, yeah, that's intuitive, right? I select single player to play multiplayer, okay...

    A character creation screen: cool. Except for some reason I can't change any of the options except my name and gender. Well, whatever, we start the game. Great graphics, for the most part. We're on an island, there's dinosaurs, awesome. Now what? I punch some trees and get thatch/wood. If I can find stone, I can craft an axe. How do I get stone? I'm trying to punch small rocks on the ground but nothing happens. Then my son is killed by a dinosaur and respawns at a random location...which, umm, makes me respawn at a random location too. Wtf? But okay. At the top of the screen it says "You are freezing, find warmth immediately." Awesome, how do we do that? I look through crafting options, or at least I try to, but it's as if the devs said to themselves: "Hey, let's figure out the most intuitive way to move through menus and pick options, and then let's do the total ****ing opposite!" I'm still trying to figure out how to craft things and looking for stone to craft a pickaxe when I realize my character is freezing to death. But I can't make a fire, and I don't have clothes, and the warm area of the island is nowhere to be seen. Death #2.

    Life 3: We spawn next to a level 26 dinosaur, which immediately kills us. It doesn't help that my guy seems to be stuck in the ground on spawning, so I can't run or attempt to move before dying.

    Life 4: We spawn in the cold again and decide to run for a warmer area, since we can't make a fire without flint and I assume you get flint with a pickaxe, which I can't make because I can't find any stone. A dinosaur runs after my son and kills him, causing us to both respawn again.

    Life 5: I watch my son spawn between a mammoth and an alligator. He turns around and dies. We start laughing, because this game is starting to get funny.

    Life 6: I end up with a pickaxe after leveling up, and I'm chipping away some stone, but then a raptor kills us. Pickaxe gone.

    Life 7 through ~20 through uninstall: we spawn so many times next to dinosaurs that kill us, or are killed while experimentally attacking a lvl 2 creature that kills us in two hits, that the game is now unintentionally hilarious. I don't care enough to decipher the arcane menus or the control scheme anymore. The game has already shown me that it doesn't try hard enough for anything to matter. If you're not going to invest enough time to prevent players from spawning next to something that will immediately kill you, I'm not going to invest any time at all learning any more about how to play. And although funny, the game is also a huge disappointment. I tend to like survival games, but I can't see any point in this one. How hard would it be to give some timely info or directions for starting players other than "You're freezing, find warmth immediately." And I'm not talking about linear missions and hand-holding for newbs, I'm talking about a "You can pick up stones by pressing B" type message. Making something arbitrarily difficult by withholding information, creating un-intuitive menus, or giving the player a lack of any directive is just idiotic, and I can't believe they released this game with so many poor design choices. This game is just terrible.    … Expand
  9. SammyHauguth
    Jan 29, 2021
    1
    Worst game I've ever played. Constantly lagging, even when playing in singleplayer. Played with Gamepass, so I'm lucky not wasted money on this dump.
  10. El_Arquitecto
    Dec 17, 2020
    0
    The game FAILS EVERYDAY from day one,the game is crap,the devolopers never fix the bugs,its a joke
  11. mork69
    Aug 5, 2020
    0
    el juego tiene un buen buen concepto, aunque llega ser tedioso o absoleto en cierto punto no se discute la infinidad de cosas que puedes hacer y la gente con la que puedes jugar es asombroso
  12. umark15
    May 14, 2020
    0
    Visually is stunning but the mechanics are awful. I had this games since it was in the Preview stage and all I can say is that it should have never been released the way it is now. Button mechanics do not work, whistle literally does nothing and you have to spam for an action to work properly. The game lags every 5 seconds and can also freeze your game and you will still take damage andVisually is stunning but the mechanics are awful. I had this games since it was in the Preview stage and all I can say is that it should have never been released the way it is now. Button mechanics do not work, whistle literally does nothing and you have to spam for an action to work properly. The game lags every 5 seconds and can also freeze your game and you will still take damage and lose everything and won't be able to do anything. This game is not worth $40 the way it is now and should definitely be worked on. After 2 hours of playing this game you are going to wish you played something else.… Expand
  13. SafeEmpress8079
    Jan 5, 2021
    1
    looks awful does not help new players and it is so boring i would say get it if it is on sale
  14. Pouvior
    Nov 16, 2020
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The game itself, is fun. Its a well build survival game that lets you and friends build, create, ride dinos, and goof around. The only limmits are your imagination. Unless you're playing on the switch. Then, it's a nightmare where new players are griefed, harassed, bullied, and targeted constantly by strangers for 'fun' with no way to secure a server, or any say of who's allowed in the world you created. If you like being stuck in a respawn screen 24/7 because the password only affects the person who set it, and turning off cheats does nothing, that this is the game for you!

    You too can spend 10 minutes at a time staring at a skull while waiting to respawn, only to be killed the second you do!

    Save yourself $60 and just get the app for free on the phone. They at least have private servers, and updates.    … Expand
  15. Dustin13
    Feb 21, 2021
    0
    Game is honestly **** garbage. **** whoever made this game I hope you **** choke on water and puke everywhere on yourself while you’re at dinner with your family and then your wife leaves you because you’re nothing but a **** game creator. Next time you make a game make sure you at least **** code it right. **** worse then any other game on the market
  16. A_Wafflle
    May 23, 2021
    2
    Wow. Just wow. It’s been about 2 years since I played it and I had thought to give it another chance as there bas been multiple updates. My dissapointment is beyond words. 1. The menus. Navigating in this game is quite literally more difficult than the excrutiating grind Ark provides you. When you load in, extremely loud music will blast into your ears and are greeted with a PC designedWow. Just wow. It’s been about 2 years since I played it and I had thought to give it another chance as there bas been multiple updates. My dissapointment is beyond words. 1. The menus. Navigating in this game is quite literally more difficult than the excrutiating grind Ark provides you. When you load in, extremely loud music will blast into your ears and are greeted with a PC designed menu. There’s also a glitch where if you switch the type of public servers you will not be able to change it again. There’s some weird thing you have to do by going into a differnet mode. Anyways, it’ horribly designed and takes very long. Split screen players have tk go into single player to play alone.

    2. Game drawbacks for xbox.
    (Ignore the section of where it says: This is) Overall, there are many things you cannot do due to technical issues. Multiplayer is unstable when too many bright lighting and buildings are placed, you cant use creative mode flying properly, there isn’t actually a creative mode even though it lets you fly,(MOST ANNOYING) While playing with a friend in a private world, you are stuck within a small radius of the host meaning you can’t really spread out to do your own thing. If the host dies and respawns, you’re teleported. In that period if they spawn on any deadly dinosaur you’ll be frozen for a small time. Lag, sensitivity, lack of tutorial or guidance/statistics on items. It’s all **** broken.

    3. Gameplay
    I don’t mind when games have complex features that you may have to look up on youtube for a small tutorial. My biggest problem is that it’s hard to not look up **** everything. Some dinos can’t be trapped, some can, some only take certain berries, some are aggressive in weird ways. Graphicly pleasing, mechanically overcomplex. I had to literally look up where to find certain things. My friend and I were at level 33 characters and couldn’t even figure out how to get into the **** forest without dying. You’re so limited without extensive knowledge that i was considering just watching a playthrough before trying it.

    4. THE GODDAMN LAG/Graphics overview
    Never have i seen a game so laggy. Bugs may have been patched but optimization may as well be nonexistent. This is    … Expand
  17. RockHobbit
    Apr 7, 2023
    2
    This is a really great game ruined by a slew of technical issues and scum bag developers. Servers being shut off in August 2023, so probably not a good idea to buy it.
  18. Emilio200
    Aug 17, 2023
    4
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Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
69

Mixed or average reviews - based on 6 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 6
  3. Negative: 0 out of 6
  1. Official Xbox Magazine UK
    Oct 21, 2017
    60
    Performance issues and progression complaints compromise this survival fantasy. [Nov 2017, p.86]
  2. M3
    Oct 17, 2017
    70
    Ark: Survivor Evolved is not a game for everyone. But if you have patience, and are willing to learn the basics the hard way the payoff is huge. A bit clumsy control on the consoles aside, this is one of the most addictive games this year.
    Read full review
  3. TrueAchievements
    Sep 8, 2017
    70
    Amazing things are possible in the ARK — the gun-wielding soldier set high atop the most badass predator of all time comes to mind — but the experience is clouded by the best ones being locked behind excessive grinding, boring farming and the need for a large group. System commands and customizable settings can ease some of the pain, but the base concept remains a chore. A messy UI and the lack of a tutorial leave you alone in the dark, forced to spend hours researching on your own in order to figure out what's what. But there's no denying that if you're willing to put in the time, you will be rewarded with some incredible gameplay moments, especially if your friends join you on the ARK.
    Read full review
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