11 Years Ago, 'Ark: Survival Evolved' Was Released

On June 2, 2015, Studio Wildcard changed the landscape of survival video games forever with Ark: Survival Evolved, an adventure game where players are forced to fend for themselves in a dangerous wilderness alongside dinosaurs.

The open-world game places users in a randomly generated world filled with dangerous creatures, ranging from real-life dinosaurs to mythological beasts, forcing them to build their own settlements and weapons to survive.

Ark: Survival Evolved was originally released on PC in 2015 and received mixed reviews, but the game's legacy has endured for years ever since. Many critics initially slated the game for its high difficulty level, essentially making it impossible to play for those who don't have any experience with the genre.

However, this intense difficulty was also one of the aspects that appealed to long-time video game fans. The game requires players to dedicate serious time to developing their own settlement and surviving the many challenges that are thrown at them, which many users appreciated.

GameSpot gave the game a 6/10 score, writing: "This outstanding sense of place and mood is offset by the sheer difficulty of everything that you have to do, the spectacular amounts of time necessary to experience even a tenth of what the game has to offer, and the randomness of death constantly destroying everything that you have built."

The general consensus was that while Ark: Survival Evolved had some brilliant ideas and entirely novel concepts, the game as a whole was quite contrived and overwhelming for new players. Thankfully, Studio Wildcard learned the right lessons from this criticism and put them into practice.

Following the success of Ark: Survival Evolved, Studio Wildcard released two spinoff games that took the criticism on board and offered very different gameplay experiences. While Ark Park received generally negative reviews for its stilted mechanics, lack of originality, and cheap comparisons to Jurassic Park, the second spinoff, PixArk, was more successful.

Marketed for a much younger audience, PixArk overcame the difficulty criticisms that had been leveled against the original game by setting a much lower barrier to entry. The sandbox mechanics meant that players could essentially play however they wanted, either pushing for challenging accomplishments or gaming at their own pace.

A direct sequel to Ark: Survival Evolved was announced at the Game Awards in 2020, but has since been delayed several times. Studio Wildcard has recently confirmed that Ark 2 should be entering early access no earlier than next year.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 2, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published June 2, 2026 at 10:06 AM.