ARK: Survival Evolved - Early Access Review

Since I heard about a survival MMO with dinosaurs, my interest was peeked. After debating long and hard about my interest in joining the Alpha process, I held back until it came to Steam on the early access program. With Jurassic World just around the corner, its safe to say that this release is a big one which has seen almost 50,000 people on at this very moment. One of those being myself and I've thoroughly enjoyed myself. Its nature as an early access game means that the review is based on what I saw from day 1 onwards but it has seen a few gigs worth of updates since then to improve its optimization issues.

So ARK is a game you may have heard about. In fact, you should have heard about it. The game is a survival world dominated by dinosaurs. Your aim is to live, tame creatures and make your way to the end game bosses. Now its been a week since I started this review. Why I've taken so long? I got incredibly involved with the game. I'm now sitting on around 30 hours of gameplay with a crew of about 10 people starting out on a new server and we are no where near the end game. As an online experience, it is one of the best I have ever had. From starting off with a humble straw hut as I wandered around solo trying to navigate the map, my area and the gain a general understanding of the creatures that rule over the land. Its safe to say that you will spend some time trying to level up and gain better access to food. Although a little punishing to begin with, once you get a feel for the lay of the land, starting up is an easy task, as long as you don't wander near any of the carnivores.

So, for its early access release, there is just over 50 creatures in game from the little Dodo to the end game Dragons. With towering Brontosaurs and T-Rex there is a wide variety to see all across the map. So the work that has gone into them is extreme and stands to reason why the game is so poorly optimized. With a minimum requirement of 4GB of RAM, the understanding is that it should run at a fairly decent quality at that point, however, this is not the case. To run the game at medium settings,

my 8GBs are having trouble keeping up at times. Framerates can fluctuate at 10-15 with background processes or windows in the background or 15+ without it but no where near a decent 25FPS to give smoothness to the lower qualities. Even those with extreme PCs struggle with its epic scaling. Alongside this we have characters never leaving the server. Unconscious bodies litter small huts and bases, ripe for the picking. Without a wooden hut or a secure base, don't expect to be alive when you come back. Raiding is rife and you are a prime target when near a spawn.

Its not the only bug, but this is a game that only appeared officially to the public on the 2nd and is already blowing other games out of the water. With a plan that looks towards the groups developing a console version for the Xbox One and PS4 in a little over a year, early access is only a step at drawing attention and hopefully will become the first survival game to actually come out of early access without suffering from the DAY-Z syndrome.

ARK is incredibly fun. Taming creatures and working together as a group to achieve a goal is great but its so much more than that. The exploration and online community make it that much better. Unofficial servers draw the better groups of people and these people instantly talk to you and give you a helping hand if you're out and about on your own walking for 30 minutes with nothing but a Dodo to keep you company. RIP Billy, you fought that Megladon like a champion, you will be remembered. They share food, dive in to help you fight something or invite you to their tribe. As a tribal unite, the game only exceeds expectations. Never fight alone again and wage a war with a rival faction and enjoy the company.

Get this game, participate in an online community that are excited and passionate. Play in a world where you can ride a T-Rex into battle and fly a giant eagle across the skies, who wouldn't like it!? 8/10!