Although it's been more than two years since the initial release of ARK: Survival Evolved, sitting down to write the review of the Studio Wildcard title is far more difficult than you might expect. We are not only talking about one of the most important survival experiments of recent years, but also of the first exponent of the genre to come out (albeit a year late) from its version in Early Access and embrace a launch on the shelves, on three consoles and with a lot by Collector's Edition. You understand how to judge ARK, it means judging years of work on a business model that has established itself on the market, with the indignation of a large slice of players and professionals. What can be said with confidence is that today it is an extremely enjoyable and "complete" game in its sandbox nature. On the contrary, not everything is as it should from a technical and optimization point of view, with all due respect to what on paper should be the foundations of a title on its final release. It could be argued that, in the current state of the market, there are also few well-optimized great games, but ARK: Survival Evolved is representative of a movement, and as such it should present itself at its best. It's time for judgments, so let's go!
The Ark of no one knows who
Point 0. You wake up on an island inhabited by creatures from a distant time, too far away to be part of it. On the wrist an object, like a graft, which is disturbingly reminiscent of those large columns that you see scattered throughout the land in front of your eyes. Where am I? What is my purpose now? When you decide to throw yourself into the fray of modern survival titles, you don't even have the problem of what you are going to live in from a narrative point of view. ARK: Survival Evolved has always reversed this trend, only to leave everyone with bated breath regarding the nature of the "arks" themselves. Over the months, more and more contents, documents scattered in the depths of the map and details deriving from some dungeons, have hinted that Studio Wildcard would have answered this question and, as absurd as it may seem to you, it also did it well. The "mission" (if we want to call it that) finally reaches its goal and there is an answer, left to the interpretation but equally clear enough, of what has happened to our world. We are not going to spoil the only truly narrative element that the title has to offer, but know that, in spite of everything you might have believed, ARK will be able to give you even a cinematic, however very short. Yours will be a long mission, which will take hundreds of hours (if played on non-speeded official servers) and which will go through the search for a long series of artifacts and bosses to defeat; until your final goal. With the addition of a real end game, consisting of a last amazing dungeon, and a rather scenic final battle, we will all be able to have our answer, one of which, linked to the supply crates falling from the sky, very nice and choreographic.
The pickaxe and the hatchet
For those who still do not know the basics of a survival, go here for a summary of the various iterations currently on the market and here for the basic tips related to the same ARK: Survival Evolved. For all the others already run in or more lazy, we can reduce the survival to the concept of "serial accumulation". After creating your character and choosing the map you want to play on, you find yourself naked in the middle of a rather hostile world. Your goal will be to accumulate a number of resources as soon as possible to be able to create standard tools, to be used both for searching for additional material and for hunting. What makes this environment unpredictable and anxious are the indicators of your vital state. The first hours of the game will inevitably be dedicated to stabilizing your physical situation, ending only and exclusively when you will be able to embark on some expedition without the almost total certainty of staying dry. This is where ARK opens up and becomes everything it has been incredibly successful for over the course of its two-year Early Access cycle.
From day one, Studio Wildcard has gone to great lengths to add content, never leaving their players without new items for more than a few weeks. This type of support and product management meant that the turnover of players was always present and fluid, so much so that there was never a real problem of server population. The idea behind the internal gameplay, but which has much more to offer, is the ability to stun and then tame dozens and dozens of creatures from the past. Both the more or less faithful one of the dinosaur world, and the less realistic one of mythological creatures, such as dragons, golems and various King Kong. Since its sandbox nature is the keystone of the experience, what ARK will offer you are an infinite series of possibilities for customizing the characteristics of your character, and a substantial number of recipes that you can unlock as you level up. Each of them will allow you to unlock, in turn, increasingly improved recipes until you pass from a caveman to a space pioneer. Right here lies the essence of ARK: Survival Evolved. More than any other sandbox (let's leave Minecraft aside, which is its own story) ARK will put you in a position to create your own tribe and, through teamwork, decide exactly what kind of elements to become. Between those who decide to settle in the primitive world (there is also a mode dedicated to this type of game), those who want to create their own personal Jurassic Park and those who, on the contrary, will think about taking only the most powerful creatures. All in the name of absolute freedom and the total desire to "create". It is obvious that not everyone will appreciate this type of gameplay and, therefore, be careful to understand what you are facing, but for supporters of the genre, few titles tend to be as complete and varied as ARK: Survival Evolved.
PVE o PVP
The choice of the type of server to jump into is one of the most pressing issues for ARK: Survival Evolved players. Over the months there have been complaints of players who were unable to establish themselves in a PvP server, as all were already "commanded" by tribes who did not think about anything other than limiting any type of experience of other players. Whether or not this happened, it cannot be denied that the choice of the type of server is required for this very reason. The writer does not appreciate the average player who arrives while you are sleeping, destroys your base and supplies and then leaves you there, passed out in the rubble of what you have built for hours. On the other hand, PvP servers serve just this and, if one wanted to limit situations of this type, it would be enough to enter a server dedicated to "role play" or with raids enabled only at specific times of the day. For everyone else, I will just have to choose a very comfortable PvE server, which will put you in front of the only hostile creatures in the game and will certainly make it easier for you to forge alliances with the other tribes stationed there. The advice we can give you is to start with the latter type (rather than the offline single player mode, dedicated to more experienced players who seek the improvement of their alter ego), so as to have a clear idea of the basics of the game and have fun saddling. your first dinosaurs. When you feel mature enough and prepared to throw yourself into the fray, nothing will stop you from choosing a modded server (with multipliers so high that you can reach the maximum level in a few minutes) and try to make a carnage of other players on the map. Once you have found your way into the world, you will see how easy it becomes to figure out how to best move and survive as long as possible.
Is it really a triple A?
We've talked so much about ARK: Survival Evolved over the course of two years, that the only thing we really care about is this. Now that the title has been released in its 1.0 version, it is difficult to objectively decree whether or not ARK is a triple A title. miracle for the genre. Distinguished by an impressive graphic detail and a truly amazing completeness of content (the next expansion just announced adds an additional alien biome and many new creatures). What is really hard to understand is a business model that certainly does not reward those who decide to buy it now. What until a few days ago was available for a scant twenty euros, today requires sixty. This element is further lost in consistency given the certainly not refined nature of a multitude of elements. Putting aside for a moment the collisions and interpenetrations, which are the order of the day in such a large sandbox, it really hurts the heart to see that Studio Wildcard hasn't bothered to "mix" the text on the screen with a graphic. dedicated. The same goes for the optimization that, despite the leaps and bounds compared to the releases, still today remains a title that is difficult to digest from medium configurations, so expensive that it is difficult to maintain only 60 frames per second on an I7 with a 1070. Forewarned is forearmed, if you want to play ARK, avoid doing it with a 386.
Comment
Tested version PC Windows Digital Delivery Steam Price 59,90 € Resources4Gaming.com7.8
Readers (38)7.7
Your voteIf it is true that the title has remained almost unchanged, except for the addition of a last dungeon and two new creatures, the same cannot be said of its price. This is probably the element of ARK that will never be possible to digest. The firm's choice to triple the price inevitably impacts judgment. We cannot hide the hundreds of hours it is able to give but justify its price with this would mean legitimizing and crediting, as a precedent for the future, a clearly excessive price increase. And having passed just a handful of days from titles like Hellblade and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, which seek to establish a new production standard and "low impact" on the customer, the move in question is even more complex to justify.
PRO
- If you like survival, ARK is the spearhead of this genre
- The amount of things to do and creatures to collect is frightening
- Although a sop, the final stage of the title is a great sigh of relief
- Optimization is not yet its strong point
- The current price is a misstep
- The announcement of the season pass for an additional € 40 is the definitive drop in style
