ARK: Survival Evolved Preview

Fpptt, I spawn in to the sound of a triceratops taking a massive dump on my character’s head… After being pooped on by a prehistoric animal I take in my surroundings and see that I’m on a beach filled with resources that I can use to set up my first home. That is the majority of what your first few hours will be spent observing and doing in your first bout with ARK: Survival Evolved. The game is one of the few Game Preview titles available on the Xbox One and it is setting a pretty good example for other early access developers to follow.

If you’re a PC gamer, then you know all about the influx of survival games that have been pouring in over the past few years. They’re usually exceedingly buggy, rarely get updates and bug fixes are long withstanding. The creators of ARK have clearly been trying to break these stigmas by having consistent updates and actually listening to their community.

The game starts you off with nothing but a pair of underwear and your fists, your job is to collect materials and start building your first home so that you have somewhere safe to protect you from all of those ravenous dinos. Now when it comes to the crafting interface, this is the one area that the game has a true downfall, the interface for crafting and levelling looks like it was created by the coding department, and is not particularly intuitive, especially when you are stuck using a controller. Because of the clunkiness of the inventory and interface it can be challenging at times to try and switch between items or craft on the fly. After familiarizing yourself with how the inventory system actually works, you will find that the rest of the game is a blast because there is a plethora of things to do.

Once you have collected a few basic resources you can begin to craft yourself some items to speed up the gathering process. In the beginning you can only craft a torch and a few other items however as you level up you get access to engrams (a point system) that allows you to learn more recipes ranging from stronger house parts to various weapons and dinosaur saddles. Once you’ve built a house you have several things to consider, you can either stick to the coast and try to gain a few more levels, or you can venture inland where you are guaranteed to find more aggressive dinosaurs and maybe even a few more players.

This is where things will get interesting for console gamers as you have a choice to either join up with another tribe or you can choose to start your own. This kind of player interaction is something that will definitely feel new to console gamers because you get to decide whether you want to make friends or enemies. If you opt to go tame some dinos instead of meeting up with other players be prepared to get your ass kicked a few times. It requires some planning ahead because as soon as you hit a dino with a rock or a tranquilizer arrow, that thing is going to start chasing you down and it won’t go down easy. You will find yourself being killed by these beautifully rendered dinosaurs over and over, however it is definitely worth the effort if you manage to tame one. The more levels you gain the more advanced your tech will get, and eventually you will be able to craft weapons like assault rifles and fabricated sniper rifles.

Speaking of beautiful dinosaurs, this game’s graphics are fantastic! The environments are beautifully done and the dinosaurs while lacking feathers, look formidable. Unfortunately, the game is not perfectly optimized at my time of writing this, however considering its early access I can definitely say it’s not the worst optimization I have seen. With the amount of work the developers have put into the game so far, I can see them getting better and better at optimizing this game for the current gen of consoles.

ARK: Survival Evolved definitely brings something new to the console table and it’s not just because it has dinosaurs, it just has so much promise and a shitload of content that it’s hard not to love it. Even though the game is in Game Preview there are very few notable bugs and glitches and none of them will ruin your gaming experience. The game has a lot of promise and I can definitely say it is worth investing some money and time into. I ended up having a roommate try to play the game as he had never played a survival type game before and he said it was nice to experience something new as a console gamer. Overall I would say this game is worth its current price tag as the developers have already proven that they will continue to add content and try to fix each and every bug as it comes along.