Recent reviews by Exan Bloodmoon

TL;DL: Game is beautiful if it runs, but same or worse shortcomings as ASE. Either the Devs haven't learned anything from ASEs shortcomings, or the decision makers are clueless. Nitrado having a monopoly on servers is disgusting and gross. Avoid at all costs.

Cannot recommend. At all. There's a lot to like here with UE5, but the game kinda hardly runs. If you can get it to launch, you'll run into an issue finding that player server you were just on. If you can get into the server, you might crash looking at something. Assuming all of that is fine, good luck when they push and update. I've had to reinstall the game 4 times over the last month (and that's just the patches I was paying attention to), because Ark would get to 99% installed, then over the course of the first 10 seconds, would start at a Estimated Complete time of about 2 minutes, then 10 min, then 40, then an hour, then 5, then 16, then 3 days, then 2 weeks, then a month, etc until my system crashed, or I was able to get Steam to shut down.

Aside from the game having issues, let's take a step back. This is the second iteration where I feel that either the Dev Team hasn't learned anything from the first time, they wiped the team, so they actually don't know anything about the first time, or whoever is making decisions doesn't care. This is the second iteration of the same flavor, and somehow it's just as bad or worse than the first? How does that happen?

Okay, so maybe it isn't the dev team(s), who else is at fault? Nitrado? Sure. Let's look at that. What I know is that way back when (not actually too far), Nitrado (a **SERVER** hosting service) contacted Snail/Wildcard and basically funded the rest of ASA, in return, Nitrado would be the only entity to be able to host ASA servers. About a month or 2 later, it was adjusted so people could, BUT only if the *registered account* was running it, meaning that your 'server computer' had to be logged in, and running the ASA server and that was the ONLY server it could run. One per account. Then about a month or two after, that was adjusted so users could download an run the server packs anonymously. So far so fine, I guess, at least it's moving forward. Then in the last couple months or somewhere around there, a different setting is added to the game, that by default, hides player hosted servers. Fine... there's a check box... except that you have to check that box... every...time.

I don't know what's going on, but I'm annoyed with this, and just not going to play, and tell any friends to avoid this. If anything go play ASE... at least it's "complete" as far as I know. Who knows, that might change too.

Super disappointed that I have to link my account to a PSN, or not be allowed to play and/or be banned for it. This is horrible. (Still horrible that it was even a though.)

It's also deplorable that now many of my friends can no longer play the game, and a few of them won't be able to play the game, as it's not playable/purchasable in nearly 200 countries. (Still hasn't been changed/reversed/anything. Still a problem.)

Note: Until things ACTUALLY happen, and more than just words are spoken/written, I'm not changing my review. Words mean little. Actions can change the world.

Edits added in parenthesis.

I've been playing this game as of about April 2013, a Founder I am. There are a few things that I didn't like about the game, back then there were a few things that felt a little out of place with the movement, as well as just a few general gameplay problems, and occasional bugs. However, coming on nearly 3 years, still playing the game, and many hours, weeks, months, and the past couple years poured into the game, it's come a long way, and still more to come.

The developer, Digital Extremes (DE), is very kind, and a group of quite entertaining (funny and otherwise), people, to anyone that watches their streams every other week, of course, depending on the stream, every week.

Things that I don't like about the game:
-Many of the tile sets feel a little predictable.
-It can be fairly easy to get burnt out, if played too much.

Things that I like about the game:
-A variety of classes, or Warframes
-Variety of weapons to choose from.
-Variety of companions.
-More colors, and minor customizasions than nessecary (but totally worth all of them).
-Diverse mission types, and rewards.
-Each Frame behaves differently than another, close in role, but different.
-Navigational "Star Map" is well designed (to be changed at some point).
-Cinamatic story piece (only one, but word is that there's more to come).
...And quite a lot more.

By no means is it a game for everyone, and the movement style can be difficult to grasp (kind of), but once you have it down, it's really easy to get around, and I find myself often wondering what the map limitations are, and for the most part, I've found that, if you can see it, it's possible to get to it, but a bit of thought is required to get to that point (sometimes, and dependant on what Frame you're on).