This game I have had my eye on for some time before I finally could no longer resist and had to buy this for myself. Ironically the game was available with 17% off for the whole time I had my eye on it and I ended up buying it at full price (The Early Access full price not the finished $60 price it is today)

So around 5 weeks ago as of writing up this review (Originally 30th September 2015), there was a free weekend or something for this game, so I decided to jump on singleplayer and see if it is all its hyped up to be. Upon waking up naked on the beach it was immediately obvious my graphics cards were not able to run the game smoothly at the maximum settings that my computer automatically sets so I turned all the graphics down to a minimum and started to explore. First thing I see is a Dodo on the beach so what do I do? I punch it in the face until it falls unconscious of course and it has a taming bar?? I’m like ‘how do tame it??’. Long story short I tame him and call him Bobo and eventually figure out how to make some basic tools and build a nice little thatch hut by the ocean with a campfire. Myself and Bobo the Dodo were then both eaten by a Raptor that literally made me jump out of my skin!

I then went onto buy the game at full price and jumped straight onto a Public/Private server that is mainly used for a Twitch Livestreamer that I watch and had to start from scratch and I have to say that despite the fact that most players on the server are already established there I have had such a huge amount of fun playing Ark that I literally haven’t touched another game since buying it. I think in the first 3 weeks I had managed to put in over 200 hours into the game primarily on the server that I play on, this is on top of working up to 50 hours per week at my workplace which is just incredible. The only other games that have captured my attention this much ever in my entire life are World of Warcraft and Diablo 2 – both very different games but games that I may have put thousands of hours into.

As the game is in Alpha stages it is continuously changing so as of writing this review the game as you buy it consists of only one map that you can play on either singleplayer or on a server whether it be an Official Ark server or an Unofficial server. As I have stated above I personally so far have put in over 250 hours primarily into an Unofficial server and I could see myself very easily just on that server for thousands of hours to come.

However, this game does also have Steam Workshop content which allows for various mods to be downloaded such as different tools or building structures. There is currently one particular Workshop mod that has been made by one of the Developers that is known as a Total Conversion mod – meaning that it converts the game completely into a new mode. This Total Conversion mod is called ‘Survival of the Fittest’, and basically this mode is a Hunger Games style game mode where up to 100 players are dropped into a modified version of the standard Ark map. They start by dropping around a central circle with various loot in the center such as spears, hatchets, pickaxes, bows, arrows, cooked meat and many other items and the last man standing or the last Tribe standing wins the game.

There are a whole tonne of changes in this game mode in order to balance it and speed up the leveling and make the whole game fast paced. On top of the standard changes to the game, there are various modifiers that activate every 15 minutes that will either help you to survive for longer or hinder your survival. Such modifiers can be Mega Cold/Heat which are self explanatory and The Beast Within which makes all non aggressive Herbivores aggressive and all Carnivores much more aggressive, and an example of a beneficial modifier that can occur is Double Taming, which will of course allow you to tame any Dinosaur at double the speed.

So Survival of the Fittest is a huge separate game mode that I can see myself also putting in thousands of potential hours despite this being a Workshop mod, I do hope when this game is finally released for those on console that this game mode is included in the game because it really is well made and watching some streamers playing this mode I have quite frequently been at the edge of my seat its so gripping and immersive with such tense moments. Also did I mention you can tame and fly a fire-breathing Dragon in this game mode??

All in all this review is probably already too long but I can’t stress enough just how immersive this game is and its only in Alpha stages! There have often been multiple updates daily for various content or fixes and if you haven’t already, you just need to buy this game.

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