ARK: Survival Evolved brings you back to the Jurassic

Remember Dino Riders? Well, ARK: Survival Evolved is basically Dino Riders with a survival bent.

And then there’s a dragon?

Also kind of coming out of nowhere is ARK itself, from developer Studio Wildcard, which combines FPS action, open-world exploration and survival, and… dinosaurs. The story behind the game’s action is pretty mysterious as well, as a bunch of humans basically wake up naked on a beach with strange mechanical devices implanted in their arms.

From there, players must explore ARK (that’s the island) and build up their character through the use of an RPG system (interesting…) to build up their strength and skills, gain items, and take on pet dinos. You’ll also be able to “hunt, harvest, craft, research technology, and build shelters to protect against scorching days, freezing nights, volatile weather systems, dangerous wildlife, and potential enemies”, which is a heck of a lot to do.

Base-building will be one of the things that you can part in as well, and you can make some beauties. Spanning from prehistoric, primitive construction, all the way up to futuristic design and hardware, the bases that you and your tribe can build in ARK is pretty awesome. Apparently you can really spread out too, and put together “sprawling villages and cities”, which sounds pretty awesome.

Great as that is though, lets get back to those dinosaurs for a second, because they’re the real stars here and there are a pile of them. The game holds 60 different kinds of dino overall, and it seems like all of them can be tamed and ridden like a horse… in some cases a flying horse. Wildcard says you’ll be able to do stuff like ride Pterosaurs through the wild blue yonder, trounce an enemy base with your own personal Brontosaurus (I thought they were Apatosaurus’ now?), rip it up on the back of a Raptor and more.

It seems incredibly ambitious, but so far, ARK: Survival Evolved is looking like it’s got a handle on some serious awesome. We’ll find out plenty more in the months to come on this one I assume, as the release date is still a ways off, and is set for early 2016 on the Xbox One, PS4, and PC… complete with Oculus Rift support.