The first several hours of gameplay was a mess of trying to figure out how to survive in a dino-eat-dino world, where the beasts that roam are as fearsome as they’ve ever been.
After losing everything to the freshest corpse time and time again, the hard lesson of aggressive survival settles in. You need to be smart with your life to survive, and hold onto it like it’s the last cookie you’ll ever set eyes on.
ARK: Survival Evolved will break you down if you do not know how to prepare for your survival. The idea of a persistent world means anything could happen when you log out. Because of this, you need loads of time on your hands, an active tribe, or to play near-exclusively in singleplayer to fully enjoy your experience in the ARK.
How to Survive the ARK
This guide contains everything you need to know to get set up in the ARK. This beginner’s guide extensively covers only the first few chunks of the game, until you reach about level 10. Check out our attributes guide if you need help figuring out what the stats do when you level up.
Set Your Spawn Point
When you create a new survivor or respawn without a bed, you get to choose which Zone you will respawn in. Not only could this help you when you’re relocating your body, but it’s important to keep in mind simply because of the sheer size of the map.
One redditor took on the quest of trying to map each Spawn Point!
There’s not exactly an ideal spawn point, though it’s advised to stay clear of spawning up north if you’re new to the game. The north side of the ARK houses dangerous creatures such as giant, carnivorous birds and hungry sabertooth cats.
Get Gathering Right Away
Get a head start by picking up everything you can. Pressing the ‘E’ key will allow you to pick items from the ground, such as berries, fiber and rock. Run up to a few trees and punch them for materials, but don’t go overboard — punching anything diminishes your health. As soon as you have the wood and thatch that you need, start crafting your tools.
There are two main tools in ARK: Survival Evolved, the Pickaxe and the Axe. You can use each tool to focus mining specific materials when gathering. Some early game examples you’ll see include:
Pickaxe - Flint from Rocks, Thatch from Trees, Raw Meat from Bodies Axe - Stone from Rocks, Wood from Trees, Hide from Bodies
Keep this in mind while you’re seeking out certain materials for crafting.
Get Some Armor on ASAP!
Whether you’re playing alone or with friends, you’re going to need armor to survive in the ARK. It’s best to acquire a full set and not just the shirt and pants. It could very well be the difference between a Dilo’s next meal and walking away with some extra hide/meat.
This man knew to wear armor while taming raptors.
Dinosaurs do a lot of damage, and many will not hesitate to kill you if you provoke them or simply get in their line of sight. Be safe and do the smart thing: get armor!
Divvy Up Your Engram Points
When you level up and increase your stats, you unlock a certain amount of You use Engram Points to learn new crafting recipes. There are currently not enough Engram Points in the game to learn everything there is to make, so it’s encouraged to divvy up the burden with your tribe members.
If you don’t have tribe members or are simply flying solo, save your points until you know what you definitely need. If you need help figuring out where to spend your Engram Points, then look out for our Engram Build Guide.
Create a Base for Inactivity
ARK: Survival Evolved features a persistent world that continues even when you’re offline. Your body will stay in the server, as if it were asleep, until you log back on again or something comes along and kills you.
In the ARK, it’s very likely that something or someone will come along and kill you while you’re down and out. In order to keep yourself safe, you and your tribe mates need to form a base to live in — preferably one that’s not made of thatch (due to the low damage resistance).
Make a Simple Bed for Your Base
It takes a lot of hide and requires the crafter to know how to make sleeping bags first, but a bed is simply invaluable. Not only do you have the ability to respawn at your bed whenever you die, but you can fast travel between any bed that you and your tribe has placed.
Try to keep your beds around the most protected area of the base, to ensure your spawn point never gets destroyed. You wouldn’t want to spawn on the beach only to figure out you can’t find your house from where you’re at.
Sufficiently Prepare Before Taming Anything
Dinosaurs are a pain in the butt to train, as they should be, so make sure you’re sufficiently prepared before trying to tame something. The least you should have is a slingshot to knock out the animal and a few narcoberries to keep him down.
Taming a Dinosaur is a long and tedious process that proves to be a challenge of its own. For more information on domesticating dinosaurs and other extinct creatures, please check our guide on how to tame your dinosaur!
Keep Crafting for Faster Leveling
ARK: Survival Evolved has a unique leveling system where you always gain experience whenever you’re online. Your activities within the ARK determine the rate at which you earn experience points.
Currently crafting is the quickest way to earn extra experience when you want to level up. Take to building torches, or if you’ve got a mortar and pestle and know how to craft sparkpowder, make a bunch of that — it’s infinitely more useful.
How do you like ARK: Survival Evolved so far?
I’ve been playing ARK: Survival Evolved for the past few days now, and it took me over 12 hours of gameplay before I really felt like I was getting anywhere. Along the way, I couldn’t help but admire the attention to detail found in the ARK that I feel lacks in many other games — not just survival games.
The developers are an ambitious bunch, but they haven’t let the sudden populararity spike get to their heads. Patches have been flying out multiple times a day, fixing bugs and sometimes adding new features or dinosaurs. Just today they released patch notes on a governance system for extra tribe management options.
What are your opinions on ARK: Survival Evolved? Have you had the chance to play it yet? How far have you gotten? Let us know in the comments below!
