This is a thumbs up with some strong caveats.

At its core, ARK is a genius game in terms of both crafting and survival. I've played a ton in this genre and ARK is the gold standard in terms of how progression scales, how many different paths of progression there are, and just the sheer amount of challenging and interesting things to do. I have over 2k hours in the original and I'll likely end up with similar numbers in this remaster.

That said, there are a few significant issues that can really ruin the experience. If you're playing online, server crashes, roll-backs, and bugs will account for almost all of the times you'll die and lose hard-earned equipment or tames. Years later and the game is still full of exploitable bugs, so don't be surprised when your base gets wiped out on PvE or your defenses completely bypassed on PvP. On official servers there is no moderation, so exploit to your hearts content, I guess. Half of the online community is completely toxic, especially the PvP community.

All that said, ARK is a great game with some serious flaws. It is decent as a single player game, but really shines when playing with others, whether your style is PvE or PvP. However, don't be shocked when bugs/exploits/crashes ruin hours (or days) of work, because that WILL happen.

This is a thumbs up with some strong caveats. At its core, ARK is a genius game in terms of both crafting and survival. I've played a ton in this genre and ARK is the gold standard in terms of how progression scales, how many different paths of progression there are, and just the sheer amount of challenging and interesting things to do. I have over 2k hours in the original and I'll likely end up with similar numbers in this remaster. That said, there are a few significant issues that can really ruin the experience. If you're playing online, server crashes, roll-backs, and bugs will account for almost all of the times you'll die and lose hard-earned equipment or tames. Years later and the game is still full of exploitable bugs, so don't be surprised when your base gets wiped out on PvE or your defenses completely bypassed on PvP. On official servers there is no moderation, so exploit to your hearts content, I guess. Half of the online community is completely toxic, especially the PvP community. All that said, ARK is a great game with some serious flaws. It is decent as a single player game, but really shines when playing with others, whether your style is PvE or PvP. However, don't be shocked when bugs/exploits/crashes ruin hours (or days) of work, because that WILL happen.