ARK: Survival Ascended, the long-anticipated upgrade to ARK: Survival Evolved, is an unforgiving survival game set in a different world inhabited by dinosaurs and prehistoric beasts. Waking up naked in an unfamiliar place, players need to manage their hunger, water, and temperature, all while staying safe from a number of vicious creatures looking for an easy snack.

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Existing alongside dinosaurs in ARK: Survival Ascended can feel a little daunting, especially when many of them will hunt the player at any given chance. Players need to construct reliable bases, tame dinosaur companions for protection and utility, and craft weapons and armor to aid their survival, all while keeping track of their character’s needs in a deadly prehistoric world.

1 Spawn In The Beach Zones

Contains Water And An Abundance Of Resources

Like in ARK: Survival Evolved, the safest places to spawn in ARK: Survival Ascended are the beach zones. Unlike most other survival games, ARK: Survival Ascended doesn’t differentiate water types between fresh and salt, meaning players can drink from the ocean. Spawning on the beach, players will have easy access to all the early-game resources they need, including thatch, fiber, rock, and flint.

The beach zones are also home to lots of passive herbivores, meaning the player shouldn’t have to worry about being hunted or finding food. Dodos are the easiest dinosaurs to hunt, and drop both raw meat for food, as well as animal hide which the player requires to craft some Cloth Armor pieces. Players should remain wary of entering the nearby woodlands and swimming across large bodies of water, however, as aggressive dinosaurs like to call those places home.

2 Build A Thatch Hut

Easiest Starting Form Of Shelter

Thatch is the first and easiest type of building block players can learn to craft with Engram points and makes for a decent shelter against most early dinosaurs. Engrams can be bought using points earned by leveling up, in the Engrams menu within the players' inventory. While thatch has a low defense rating and can be destroyed by wild dinosaurs, quickly constructing a small thatch hut is a great way to survive the elements while hiding the player from danger.

In ARK: Survival Ascended, the building process has been slightly altered, as Wildcard reduced the amount of engrams required to learn to build structures. Players can unlock the Thatch Foundation, Thatch Wall & Doorway, Thatch Doors & Window, and Thatch Ceiling at level 4. Thatch Wall & Doorway has several structure variants built into one that players can cycle through before lying down. To place walls, players will first need to lay down a foundation, which should then allow walls to be placed around the edge. As players level up, they can replace each part of the building with wooden or stone building blocks for additional safety.

3 Craft Important Stations

Vital For The Early Game

Crafting and placing a Campfire, Refining Forge, Smithy, Preserving Bin, Mortar and Pestle, and - most importantly - a bed, inside a base is a high priority. Each piece of furniture has solid value in the early game. The Refining Forge smelts metal ore, which can then be used to craft better weapons in the Smithy. The Smithy also unlocks better armor and some dinosaur saddles.

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The Preserving Bin, while containing Spark Powder, preserves priority perishable items such as food. Spark Powder can be crafted within the Mortar and Pestle, which is also where Narcotics - important for taming - and gunpowder are made. Placing down a bed is extremely important, as it acts as a respawn point. While the player can’t skip through the night by sleeping in a bed, it is possible to fast-travel from one bed to another. Lastly, the Campfire is useful for providing heat, cooking meat, and burning wood to create charcoal for gunpowder. As the player levels, they will unlock additional crafting stations such as the Fabricator and Industrial Forge.

4 Carry Bolas For Safety

An Essential Utility Weapon

Bolas, learned at level 9, is a throwable weapon that keeps an affected dinosaur stuck in place. While Bolas don’t work on larger dinosaurs, such as the Stegosaurus, they do restrict the movement of Raptors, which will often be the biggest threat to newcomers in the early game. While caught by bolas, Raptors are of little threat to the player for 30 seconds, making them either an easy target for arrows or enabling a quick getaway.

Bolas also work as a great method for locking down creatures to knock them out and tame them, or keep passive herbivores like the Parasaur in place to secure an effortless kill. Craftable with thatch, stone, hide, and fiber, bolas are relatively cheap to craft and act as an amazing utility weapon with an endless variety of uses. As the player progresses, Bolas can be replaced by Chain Bolas, which are far more effective on a wider range of targets.

5 Tame A Travel Mount

Vital For Eluding Predators

ARK: Survival Ascended removed the ability to level movement speed, stripping the survivor of any chance of outrunning some aggressive wild dinosaurs, including Raptors. On top of this, unlike the player, wild dinos don’t suffer from stamina drain. Therefore, taming a good travel mount should be a high priority for newcomers, and there are some great early-game options.

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Parasaurs are easy to tame and decent early-game mounts, having high stamina, low stamina drain, and good speed. A Parasaur can outrun most threats, although it doesn’t do so well in fighting them, and can be placed in Turret Mode to alert the player of potential dangers. Alternatively, if the player is feeling confident, low-level Raptors are relatively easy to knock out using a Bola and some Tranq Arrows.

6 Locate And Gather Valuable Materials

Metals Are Particularly Important

Metal, Crystal, Obsidian, and Silica Pearls are all valuable resources that can be harvested from a variety of deposits found around the map. Metal in particular will become extremely important to have on hand as the game progresses, as it becomes a primary material for almost every mid-to-late game craft. Metal rocks have a slightly different appearance to other rocks, decorated with silver veins that spark when hit. Stone Pickaxes will be the primary method of gathering, until the player has enough metal to craft a Metal Pickaxe, or tames a gathering dino like the Ankylosaurus.

Crystal, also harvested using a pickaxe, is useful for crafting Water Jars (which allows the player to keep water on hand in their inventory), Spyglasses, and Green House building blocks. Metal, Crystal, and Obsidian nodes can all be found in mountainous areas, with a few Metal Nodes existing alongside hills. Silica Pearls are often located sparkling along riverbeds or at the bottom of lakes and are useful for late-game crafts in the Fabricator.

7 Tame Resource-Gathering Dinos

Makes Gathering Resources More Efficient

As well as being impressive, dinosaurs in ARK: Survival Ascended have several utility uses, with different dinosaurs performing some jobs better than others. Newcomers will want to prioritize taming the following dinosaurs to reduce the early-game grind and gather resources more efficiently. Triceratops are excellent for both thatch and berry gathering, allowing the player to bulk-craft narcotics.

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The Doedicurus is great at gathering stone, and also halves the total weight of any stone in its inventory, while the Ankylosaurus is a master at gathering metal from metal rocks, improving the speed and efficiency of metal runs by a large amount. Finally, the Casteroides, an adorable beaver-like dino, excels at wood gathering and halves the total weight of carried wood, similar to the Doedicurus with stone.

8 Slay Alphas For Easy Levels

Focus On Alpha Raptors

Alpha dinosaurs are beefier, stronger variants of their non-alpha kin. Physically larger, typically adorned in red or white scales, and sometimes accompanied by a red glow, slaying an Alpha provides a lot of experience points. While Alpha Carnos and Alpha Rexes may be a little too difficult to take out, Alpha Raptors are typically quite easy to manage with a decently leveled mount.

Triceratops do particularly well against Alpha Raptors due to their increase in defense when attacked from the front. Alpha Raptors drop decent loot for the early game, such as Metal Pickaxes, Metal Hatchets, Arrows, Tranq Arrows, and Bows, and can be harvested for heaps of Prime Meat. Prime Meat is a great taming resource for carnivores, though it spoils much faster than Raw Meat and comes in smaller stacks. As players reach higher levels, Alpha Carnos and Rexes become much easier targets to deal with, providing increased experience points and more valuable loot.

Ark: Survival Ascended

Platform(s)

PC , PS5 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S

Released

October 26, 2023

Developer(s)

Studio Wildcard

Genre(s)

Survival , Open-World