90% Positive Reviews for 6 Years. What’s ARK Survival Evolved’s Secret Recipe

A Frequent Visitor on Steam Weekly Top Sellers

As a recognized work of excellence, the survival sandbox game "ARK: Survival Evolved" has maintained a positive review rate of around 90% on the Steam platform for 6 years since its release, reaching the standard of "Very Positive", which is a textbook-level existence among similar games. In addition to word of mouth, ARK: Survival Evolved's other achievements are equally impressive, with 35 million players on Steam, PS4, XBOXOne, NS, EPIC and other platforms, and is a frequent visitor on Steam's weekly sales rankings.

ARK: Survival Evolved can be described as the pinnacle of its debut on the Steam platform, with sales exceeding 2 million units in the first year of its release as a preview, and it also became one of the top-rated games of 2015, with unique dinosaur elements coupled with hardcore survival gameplay making the game a hit with gamers.

Successful DLCs and New Content

Since the game's release, ARK has been releasing one or two DLC (content expansion packs) a year, constantly improving the game's content and pushing its boundaries. Currently, there are several DLCs released for ARK. Five free DLCs have been released for Center Island, Wonderland, Vargello, Crystal Island, and Lost Island, while paid DLCs include Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Genesis Season 1 and Genesis Season 2.

In November 2018, ARK: Survival Evolved's "Extinction" DLC went live and directly dominated Steam's weekly sales rankings, going on to drive both delivery sales and online figures, with ARK: Survival Evolved and its DLC taking three of the top 10 spots at the time, causing quite a stir.

When the new DLC for ARK: Genesis was unveiled and pre-orders began, its pre-sales topped Steam's weekly sales rankings, setting a rather rare record. This was followed by the official release of ARK: Genesis in February 2020, with the game once again topping Steam's weekly global top sellers, and the game's online numbers continue to peak, reaching an all-time high of 157,000 concurrent online users a month after ARK: Genesis Season 1's release.

Released in June of this year, ARK: Genesis Season 2 continued the success of ARK: Genesis Season 1, taking the #2 spot on Steam's weekly best sellers with only 3 days of sales counted, while the game returned to its peak popularity with a recent high of 147,000 concurrent users online.

In each DLC for ARK: Survival Evolved, players enter a new map, encounter new environments, creatures and accessories, and can gain an entirely new experience. In addition, the DLCs are interconnected, hiding clues about the main story and allowing players to explore the true story of the game, which is perhaps one of the reasons why each ARK: Survival Evolved DLC has become such a success.

Derivative sandboxes recreate the glory of ARK's sequential universe ambitions.

The ARK: Survival Evolved DLCs are both standalone and interrelated, as each corresponds to a storyline that ties together to form a grand sci-fi story.

In "The Island" DLC, players first enter a giant bionic space station to survive and face dangerous conditions, and then teleport to space stations like "Scorched Earth" and "Aberration" to Then, players are transported to space stations like Scorched Earth and Aberration to explore and, finally, return to the decaying Earth of the "Extinction" DLC. In "Extinction", the player resolves the Elemental Plague plague and enters the Genesis ship on a journey to New Earth, while the Genesis ship Inside, there is a disaster that the player does not expect.

The paid DLC for ARK: Survival Evolved strings together storylines that can form a great sci-fi story, while the free DLC complements the story's ramifications. Following the conclusion of the second season of ARK: Genesis, the full extent of the ARK universe is finally revealed to players. ARK: Survival Evolved is arguably one of the few sandbox-type games with a very complete story and gameplay, and many players have even asked the development team to turn the game into a movie.

The ARK Universe

In addition, ARK: Survival Evolved has many related games on Steam. For example, ARK: Survival Evolved is a pixelated version of ARK: Survival Evolved. The gameplay is basically the same as ARK: Survival Evolved, except that players find themselves in a pixelated world to survive, and the pressure to survive and PVP battles between players are weakened in favor of more casual gameplay.

In addition, ARK Park, a VR game that succeeds the ARK: Survival Evolved IP, has also been released, a unique and interesting immersive gaming experience, which is considered a test of ARK: Survival Evolved in the emerging field.

It can be said that from the rich and diverse DLC, to the various types of associated games, ARK: Survival Evolved has completed a piece of the matrix puzzle, expanding the influence of the IP and radiating to other areas. Perhaps one day in the future, ARK: Survival Evolved will once again break people's imagination and integrate various products to create an even more amazing sandbox universe.