Hunting and surviving on a deserted island is a pretty common gameplay genre today and it's running the risk of becoming merely a zombie sub-genre that leaves it as dead as the shuffling antagonists due to over-saturation. Perhaps it can be saved though by the introduction of a new threat and new worlds to explore, as ARK: Survival Evolved brings players to an open world island that's filled with dinosaurs and bizarre futuristic technology that nobody knows what it's for.
You awake with no items except the clothes on your back and a small metal implant in your wrist. From there you have to survive with and against other players, using dinosaurs for food, mounts and beasts of burden, all the while exploring the expansive jungle world you find yourself on.
In the end too, you might even find out what the ARK is for.
Built by a small team of independent developers using the Unreal Engine 4, ARK: Survival Evolved is designed to fix the problems that survival games have had in the past and will support hundreds of players on the same map, letting complex tribes and communities evolve.
What they do though will be up to them. Will they build jungle fortresses? Take off in swarms of flying beasts to explore the rest of the world, or dig down deep and see what lies beneath the surface.
ARK: Survival Evolved launches in Early Access at the start of June and is expected to launch fully in Q1 2016 on Xbox One, PS4 and PC.