Survival games are certainly not for the faint of heart. But with Ark: Survival Evolved, the game's ability to dole out punishment seems to transcend its gameplay to encompass all the activities required to get it up and running in the first place. At least that was the case at the time of its launch back in 2017, after two years in Steam Early Access.
This is probably the main reason its community of players has had to adapt and evolve, much like their in-game avatars. Because in spite of the countless issues and glitches the game has grown to be known for, it is still a fun one to play with friends and strangers alike. And in their quest to build and adventure through the ultimate dinosaur sandbox, here are a few habits that its player base has developed over the years.
5 Play On The Lowest Graphics Settings
This one is specific to PC players, especially those that got the game when it was still in early access on Steam. Ark: Survival Evolved is a fairly demanding game, talking from a purely technical perspective. Its developers at Studio Wildcard had set out to push the boundaries for visuals in a survival game, but all that ambition definitely came at a cost.
The dense foliage of its jungles and long draw distances of its landscapes meant the frame rate could sometimes take a hit, especially on lower-end machines. To circumvent this, many players are forced to play the game on very low settings, paring back the details until it looks like a different game entirely - or something closer to the Nintendo Switch version. But given the choice between gorgeous environments and a playable frame rate, most players would certainly choose frame rate.
4 Deal With Countless Bugs And Glitches
If there's one thing Ark: Survival Evolved is notorious for, it is the many bugs and glitches that continue to plague the game several years after coming out of early access. Some of these are just minor annoyances, like shadows flickering on and off in the environment or dinosaurs getting stuck while traversing the terrain.
Others, though, almost render the game completely unplayable, like having your character spawn into walls right after loading into a server or hard crashing to the desktop for no discernable reason. The Nintendo Switch version, in particular, is plagued with so many of these that many players have wondered how that port managed to pass through quality assurance. But across the board, players continue to look past these issues in order to get to the real meat of the game, so anyone planning to join them needs to have a very high tolerance for such issues.
3 Get Anxious Every Time The Battle Music Kicks In
The world of Ark: Survival Evolved is fraught with several things trying to harm you at any given moment, from other players to towering T. Rexes. For those players still trying to get their footing in the game, that ever-present challenge prevents them from exploring the world or gathering the resources they need to craft and advance their base without fear of attack.
For these players, the first indication that something in the immediate vicinity has taken issues with their presence there is usually the battle music. Because of this, it doesn't take very long before they start to associate that music with a feeling of dread. This is especially true when you are yet to spot the particular creature in question, currently aiming for your jugular, while you were just there minding your own business.
2 Feel Satisfaction After Preventing A Raid
One of the dangers of playing a game like Ark: Survival Evolved on an internet server is the near-constant possibility of getting raided. This is when another player or groups of players attempt to loot the gear and resources you'd spent countless hours crafting and gathering. And because of the asynchronous nature of the game, it can happen at any time, even while you are not currently logged in.
This is why most players favor those servers where they have other players to help protect their bases even while they aren't there. But for those instances where you happen to be logged in when the attempted raid happens, nothing beats that feeling of satisfaction you get after successfully fending off the would-be raiders. Some might even come in large groups, with coordinated attacks, making a victory against feel even more rewarding. It is such elements that help the world of Ark: Survival Evolved feel lived in and fully realized.
1 Grind Like There's No Tomorrow
In Ark: Survival Evolved, players literally start with nothing to their name. Every item they need to survive and set up their base needs to be painstakingly gathered from the environment. Most of your time would in fact be spent gathering resources like stone, wood, and metal ore, as crafting plays a huge part of the overall gameplay loop.
So, yes, you'll be doing a lot of grinding within the game if you're hoping to build stone fortresses or wield machine guns any time soon. There are simply no two ways about it. You either grow to enjoy the grind or at the very least come to accept it. But trust us when we say there is no greater feeling of accomplishment than patrolling the perimeters of your carefully-built fortress on top of the same T. Rex that once terrorized it for weeks, having acquired the skill and tools to do so.