The insanely popular PC game, Ark: Survival Evolved, has finally released on Xbox One through the Xbox One’s Game Preview feature. This allows players to play an early build of the game while the developers finish it. We have decided that we are going to hold our full review until the release of the finished product as the product on the Xbox Store right now is a work in progress. We will not be adding a score to this preview.
When I heard that this game was coming to Xbox One, I was excited but at the same time a bit skeptical. I was worried they would dumb down some of the features to make it work on a console, but I can gladly report that this is not the case. This is the game you can play on PC, and all of the features are here on Xbox One. Want to ride a dinosaur? Do it. Want to set up a tribe and raid other players? Do it. There’s very little you can’t do in this game. You can build what you want, hunt for food or for supplies, and even raid someone’s village. The only thing it does somewhat poorly with its port is that the draw distance is pretty poor. I’m sure it’ll be fixed as the game gets updated, but right now it’s incredibly distracting and jarring to see dinosaurs and rocks just appear around 40 yards away from you.
For those unaware with what Ark: Survival Evolved is, it’s a game that mixes dinosaurs with Minecraft. If that doesn’t sound amazing to you, I don’t know what would! You spawn as a caveman somewhere in a massive world filled with other players, and you have nothing besides a strange chip embedded in your arm. From here, it’s up to you to survive. There are people hunting you, animals like dinosaurs roaming the world looking for food, and the only thing you have on you is some cloth around your crotch. You’ll need to use your wits and strength to survive. You must pick up stones and break off tree branches to make a hatchet to kill your prey for their meat, and get flint and wood so that you can cook your food with a fire. Banding together with fellow survivors makes it easier to take down larger creatures and successfully survive against other groups of players.
It is a scary world filled with danger and surprises, and just writing about it makes me want to go dive back in. Sadly, at the moment the game has no in-game tutorials. It doesn’t tell you how to survive or even what the controls are. You’ll need to open the Xbox Help app which doesn’t even tell you all of the controls. It will tell you all of the basic controls, but it doesn’t tell you how to use the in-game chat system or how to go into third person.
This game is giant vessel of player created stories. Look up “Ark: Survival Evolved let’s play” on YouTube and you’ll find so many hilarious and intense moments! One of my favorite moments that has happened was when I was walking on the beach at night looking for supplies when all of a sudden I saw a small orange glow in the distance. I decide to investigate, and the closer I get I can start to hear voices singing “Photograph” by Nickelback. I instantly knew I had to become friends with these people so I turned on my microphone and started singing with them.
The six of us ended up building a small shack and began hunting for food. The small settlement only took a few hours to build until three raptors ambushed us out of nowhere. Grabbing our spears and stone hatchets we attacked the ferocious beasts. We managed to take down one, but their strength and agility soon overpowered us. I watched my new friends use all of their might to take down the invaders and get torn apart by the reptiles. Once I saw all of my friends scattered on the ground, I knew there was no reason to stick around. I sprinted towards the jungle to escape the raptors only to be greeted by a group of giant bee-like creatures who swarmed me and stung me to death. I always love it when a game can be so large that random things like that can happen and make me want to share stories with other players.
Ark: Survival Evolved is a great game even though it’s not finished yet. It has some technical flaws and some odd design choices but I can’t imagine it won’t be fixed in an update in the near future. The game has lots of potential to add things like hair styles or beards in free updates. I can’t wait to see what the developers do with the title and I certainly can’t wait to hear the stories shared by other players!
Ark: Survival Evolved is now available on Xbox One for $34.99 and Steam for $29.99.
Cade is a games journalist, Gaming Writer at ComicBook.com. They contributed 108 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, and Xbox news: served as Editor-in-Chief at GameZone before joining ComicBook.com.