ARK: Survival Evolved has quickly and quietly become a big deal on Steam. Frequently ranking among the top 20 most-viewed games on Twitch and proving to be a hit with YouTubers, ARK follows the path to success of many survival games before it, but it has arguably attracted more praise in its first couple of months on sale than its Early Access peers H1Z1 and fellow dino-hunting romp The Stomping Lands.
I purchased ARK when it was first released though several reported problems with the game, including a crippling frame-rate and frequent crashes, meaning that I didn’t bother jumping on it until recently. Though I was well aware that the game continued to suffer from optimization problems, which were apparently woeful even for an Early Access release, I figured I’d give it a shot and see what all the hype was about. After spending several hours meandering through its sprawling open-world environment, desperately trying to survive while surrounded by hordes of carnivorous prehistoric beasts and battling an unforgiving hunger/dehydration system, I can now safely say that I understand why ARK is conquering Steam. Kind of.
First, everything you may have heard about the game’s technical problems are true. While I imagine it doesn’t run as poorly as it did at launch, with many stating that the game was unplayable upon its release, it still has a variety of issues that sought to severely dampen my experience with it. I get that it’s an Early Access game so problems should be expected, but after having dipped my toes in those particularly risky waters many times before, I’d wager that I haven’t come across an Early Access game that has struggled technically as much as ARK does. It’s certainly a work-in-progress, and if you’re not okay with being at the starting line of what developers Studio Wildcard have stated will be a year-long marathon to get the game completed, then I am not going to try to convince you otherwise.
While the most recent update to the game seems to have ironed out a few of the issues, most notably a start-up problem in which the game would fail to launch for a number of people (myself included) until they accessed one of its folders and deleted a file, it’s still yet to become a smooth ride for players. During my time with the game I joined several servers that, despite having low ping, were bogged down by lag spikes that made players freeze after taking a few steps, essentially rendering combat impossible. In one server I found myself being attacked by a giant scorpion and, thanks to the delay in the game’s registering of my attacks, I failed to land even one solid blow as I was being mauled to death. On another similarly irritating occasion the game crashed and informed me that I didn’t have enough memory to run it. I have 8GB of physical memory. I think ARK is lying to me.
But despite ARK causing more grief for the player than many other Early Access games, its appeal and the reason why it has proven to be so popular despite its flaws are plain to see. While ARK promises “survival evolved,” and in actuality it doesn’t stray too far from the formula proven by DayZ, its greatest selling point at the time of this writing is undoubtedly its community. While the likes of DayZ and H1Z1 prove to be impenetrable for the newcomer due to their worlds being populated by merciless bandits who will kill you before you’ve even had the chance to raise your arms and desperately scream “FRIENDLY!”, the citizens that populate the tropical island of ARK are typically more than willing to lend newbies a hand or, at the very least, ignore them and go about their business. After being molded by survival games in which bumping into a player is more terrifying than bumping into a zombie or other such computer-controlled enemy, I was thoroughly surprised to find each encounter I had with a fellow player being amicable and, oddly, quite heartwarming.
My first hour in the game saw me bumping into a tribe of people who were saddled onto the back of their respective tyrannosauruses and argentavis (thanks, ARK wiki!) and, being a curious little caveman, I decided to plainly introduce myself while my survivor was still standing around in his undergarments (players can decide between a male or female survivor, with both of them covering their modesty with underwear).
While I naturally expected that I would be slaughtered by my far more intimidating peers, one named “Alfieee” instead hopped from off of his T-rex and greeted me. “What do you want?” he enquired. “Nothin’, I’m just watchin’,” I replied. He then stood next to me for a while, presumably checking to see what I had in my inventory, before informing me that he would come back with some supplies. At this point I suspected that he was calling my bluff and pretending to buddy up with me before slaughtering me and laughing about it with his buddies, but no! He disappeared into the wilderness, then returned with 100 tranquilizer darts (these are used in order to tame dinosaurs) along with a variety of clothing and food.
Embarrassingly, when he returned I had just figured out that pressing ‘Z’ makes your player-character defecate, and after pressing it I had then proceeded to pick up my poop and hold it. “…Are you holding your shit?” he asked me. Even in a virtual prehistoric world I was not free from devastating social humiliation.
I stuck by Alfieee for quite some time, admiring him as he meticulously destroyed the encampment of another tribe. I watched him discuss his reasoning for doing so in the chat box, with his rival tribe having logged on to discover that all of their hard work had been undone in a matter of minutes. It turns out that Alfieee had grown angered after a member of his tribe had been unnecessarily mowed down by the owner of the sanctuary he and his T-rex had just knocked to the ground. The guy responsible for this crime proved to be belligerent in the chat, making his case for murdering another player while also quite clearly coming to the realization that anything he now built in this world would be destroyed by Alfieee and his friends. This is how ARK manages to maintain a largely pacifist community—by introducing very real consequences for killing other players in the game.
ARK convincing players to adopt a set of principles may just be a happy coincidence, but considering that literally no other survival game has managed to achieve this, it’s a big deal and undoubtedly a huge factor in why the game has proven to be successful. Whereas in the likes of DayZ players have nothing to lose and everything to gain by killing their fellow survivors, in ARK players are more concerned with building their settlements with their friends and training dinosaurs than they are making the lives of others significantly worse. With these settlements featuring the name of the tribe they belong to, committing an act of violence upon another player will likely set off a chain reaction which would lead to the tribes warring with one another, a situation that would undoubtedly leave both parties significantly worse off in terms of supplies and domesticated beasts.
The key issue survival games have had is replicating the kind of real-world relationships that would form between strangers looking to survive in a dangerous environment. While all human interactions in an apocalyptic landscape would undoubtedly be tense, not all of them would automatically lead to someone dying, and that certainly isn’t the case in ARK. As such it makes the foundations of the game far less frustrating, encouraging communication with other players outside of those you’re engaged in a Skype chat with while you build a new T-rex pen in your encampment.
It wasn’t just Alfieee who proved to be a helpful comrade in my quest to not die—many other ARK players also took time out of their busy schedules to hand over supplies that allowed me to happily continue with my day. This allowed me to make swifter progress when it came to crafting my shelter, the game’s main selling point, something which proved to be laborious in the likes of H1Z1 due to supplies being incredibly light on the ground and other players being more than willing to prevent you from achieving anything within its cutthroat world.
ARK: Survival Evolved has many technical problems that have yet to be ironed out, and purchasing it right now carries with it the same risk as it does when you purchase any Early Access game; jumping on the bandwagon early means you are reliant upon its developers to stay true to their word by continuing to improve it, and if you are wary of the business model, then ARK certainly won’t be the game to convince you otherwise. However, for those who are willing to take a leap of faith, ARK has cultivated a wonderful community that really helps it stand out in a market oversaturated with survival games.. With Studio Wildcard stating that they have plans to introduce vehicles, procedurally generated maps, underwater biomes, and more, the future seems bright for ARK and I hope that the devs make good on their promises.
