Wildcard has recently come out to announce that ARK 2 will be delayed until the end of 2024, which gives fans about a year to prepare for the new dinosaur-survival experience. Until then, players should start getting back into the first game, ARK: Survival Evolved, or for beginners in which ARK 2 piqued their interest.
Ark: Survival Evolved is one of the best survival experiences that any video game fan can get, not to even mention the unique mechanic of allowing players to tame their own dinosaurs. At its core, ARK: Survival Evolved is a build-craft-survive video game, but there is much more to do than usual. Players should spend some time mastering the complex game that is ARK: Survival Evolved.
8 Beat The Main Game (The Island)
Initially, ARK: Survival Evolved placed players on its main map, The Island. The Island map was a simple island with mountains, forests, jungles, beaches, a snowy area, and even a volcano. This map is the first one that players need to play when following the canonical story.
Now that there is voice acting and different cutscenes, it is a great time to jump into PVE and try completing The Island. Players will need to scavenge for Artifacts and then challenge The Island's bosses before ascending to the next 'level.' Though it can take up a lot of free time, it's rewarding and fun to take over The Island.
7 Try Out PVP
There are two different ways to play ARK: Survival Evolved, and they have essentially divided the game's player base: PVE and PVP. PVP is popular within populated PVP servers. Players come together to form tribes, and they then collectively tame dinosaurs, gather resources, and build impressive bases before other tribes bring them down. Utilizing the best weapons in ARK will give players the best chance at taking out enemies.
Not only that but there is also the Survival of the Fittest mode which is ARK: Survival Evolved's take on the battle royale genre. Players drop onto an island and will need to gather dinosaurs and resources to take on other competitors.
6 Beat ARK's DLCs
After The Island, Wildcard spent no time wasted creating new maps for ARK: Survival Evolved DLC. Even more, players modded their own custom maps into the game, and Wildcard introduced them into the main game as official fan-made maps.
Each of these maps, whether canon or non-canon, has ways of 'beating' them. Usually, players will need to take on the maps' bosses to have completed the map. The newer DLC maps are lots of fun, and very different from the original The Island map.
5 Collect Dossiers And Notes
Every player in ARK: Survival Evolved would have come across a Dossier or Explorer's Note at some point in their playthrough. Dossiers are recorded facts about specific dinosaurs and animals, while Explorer's Notes are entries made by past explorers who have passed through the map where the note was found.
Many perfectionists grind to collect every single Dossier and Explorer's Note, and this would have granted them an achievement/trophy. So, any trophy hunters out there will need to obtain each note.
4 Tame Every Dinosaur
Just like players need to collect every Explorer's Note and Dossier to 100% the game, they will need to have tamed almost every single dinosaur. For The Island, players should be able to collect the achievement, Master Zoologist, by taming every tameable creature in the game.
Despite being one of the least-held achievements, Master Zoologist is fairly easy when using console commands. Otherwise, players may have a hard, but adventurous, time gathering every tameable dino in ARK.
3 Beat The Alpha Bosses
PVE players looking for more of a challenge will want to challenge the Alpha bosses in ARK: Survival Evolved. The Alpha bosses are the highest level of the boss creatures, which means they have exceptional health and damage output.
First, players will need to gather all of the artifacts and trophies that an Alpha boss needs, which is different for each one. Then, players will have to gather their strongest tames and equipment to have a chance at taking one of these beasts down.
2 Build A Fancy Base
Whether players are trying out creative mode or simply bored in their ARK: Survival World, there comes a time when these players may want to spice things up with their base or house. Usually, player-built bases tend to be boring as they are usually square-shaped buildings with no decor whatsoever.
Fortunately, there are dozens upon dozens of online tutorials for players to check out when building a base or house. This allows ARK survivors to show off with a nice-looking mansion on a cliffside, or maybe a large ultra-safe metallic base hidden below a treeline.
1 (PC) Try Out Mods
Once players get bored with a game, especially PC users, they start to download mods for said game. This allows them to bring in new content that the vanilla game didn't withhold.
For ARK: Survival Evolved, modding is an important feature that has even brought in developer-supported content to the vanilla game, like maps. There are plenty of wonderful mods, whether they are quality-of-life based or fun game-changing features, mods can bring life back into ARK: Survival Evolved.
ARK: Survival Evolved is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, mobile devices, and PC. ARK 2 will be available in late 2024.