The Genesis expansion for the dino hit ARK: Survival Evolved continues to face criticism from players. However, the positive voices are growing louder. Our author Sascha Asendorf spoke with an ARK veteran and asked her: What do you like about Genesis?
This is what’s going on in Genesis: On Steam, the expansion has a rating of 40%. This makes Genesis the worst-rated DLC from ARK. The reasons are diverse, but can be attributed to
- the seemingly small biomes,
- the now lifted flight ban,
- the high difficulty level
- and the missions.
I talked about the topic in a video from Gamestar:
Veteran likes Genesis – here are the reasons
ARK player Chaplynn has spent nearly 6000 hours of gameplay since the Early Access launch in 2015 in the dino hit and finds Genesis, despite the predominantly negative reviews, great. I asked her: Why?
The degree of difficulty motivates
She appreciates the high difficulty level, which poses a special challenge for her and her friends. Where other players give up and complain, she is driven by ambition and wants to achieve everything.
Genesis goes in a new direction, and the feeling of not knowing anything and failing in the first hours is refreshing and reminiscent of the early days in ARK.
Similar to how players feel in the Dark Souls series. The harder a game is, the greater the ambition to bring out the best in oneself. And this, in turn, provides a sense of accomplishment that has been somewhat lacking in the latest expansions. ARK is primarily a survival game, and Genesis showcases that perfectly.
The biomes are full of details, flying is unnecessary
The small biomes, which are criticized by the community, are for Chaplynn a pure adventure. Without flying creatures, she has to wander on the ground through the dangerous yet beautifully designed biomes, discovering many details that would be lost in flight. Without flying dinos, the world also feels much larger than it actually is.
This way, she and her friends keep discovering new caves or simply building up in the swamp biome. Building on trees was possible in the old ARKs, for example in the Redwood biome of The Island, but not as pronounced as in Genesis. There are many good building spots that need to be found, and they are well hidden in every biome. The urge to explore is high, and exploring is fun.
The missions are fun and sometimes ridiculously hard
The missions in ARK Genesis are not to everyone’s taste. Dino racing or Dodo basketball also sound quite inappropriate for a challenging simulation that Genesis is supposed to represent.
Nevertheless, they provide a good change in the daily life of ARK players, and especially the more difficult missions like “Hide and Seek” can quickly mean death for reckless adventurers. Here too, Genesis shows that it wants to be challenging.
The building bans in the mission zones, which have also been criticized by players, have been disabled by Chaplynn and her friends on their server. Wildcard has also introduced new official servers where that is the case as well.
How do you spend 6000 hours in ARK?
6000 hours since 2015 may sound like a lot at first, but when compared to typical playtimes in WoW, LoL, or Fortnite, 6000 hours is almost normal.
Chaplynn and her friends initially spent a lot of time learning the mechanics of the game during Early Access and then dove into PvP on the official servers. After several years, they switched to their private server and since then have taken things a bit easier. They no longer play daily, as it cannot be reconciled with their job anymore. They are no longer looking for the challenge in PvP but in PvE, and Genesis comes just right for them.
How many hours have you spent so far in ARK and what do you think of the Genesis expansion? Share it in the comments.
