In 2009, the gaming industry was forever changed when a humble indie game called Minecraft was first made available to the public, introducing the world to a new genre of sandbox gaming that would go on to be cloned and mimicked to death in the ensuing decade. One of the most recent offshoots of this concept is PixARK, a Minecraft-esque take on the cult survival hit Ark: Survival Evolved that eschews the pseudo-realistic dino-hunting aesthetics of the original in favour of a blockier and more colourful style that appeals to a wider audience. Unfortunately, this new mashup of styles simply isn’t very enjoyable to play, and though it may look rather pretty, PixARK proves to be a weak and unmemorable attempt at riding on the coattails of much better games.
As a survival-first experience, PixARK doesn’t have a story to speak of, just a simple ‘you vs. the world’ setup that demands you examine the ins and outs of the environment around you and learn to subdue it, bending it to your will to accomplish your goals. Worlds are randomly generated, filled with a diverse array of biomes and geographical features teeming with animal life, and your goal is to explore as much of it as you can, harvest what natural resources you wish, and ultimately eke out a satisfying existence. When it’s done right, this kind of setting can prove to be a wonderfully enjoyable challenge, as you constantly set a series of small goals to fulfill on your endless journey for self-improvement. In PixARK, however, this survival focus feels more like a chore than an enjoyable challenge, largely due to the sloppily thrown together nature of the controls and design.
Right from the get-go, you know you’re in for a ‘treat’ when you’re faced with a character customizer that gives you a taste of the abundantly deplorable menus that plague the entire experience. It’s clear that the developers put no serious time into playtesting these menus, as the tiny text and hokey navigation show that it was obviously designed for a PC interface; switching between options with a controller is about as fun as trying to navigate a webpage using only the TAB button to move between links. It’s possible, sure, but it’s the farthest thing from intuitive that a menu design could be, and given how much of the PixARK experience is spent sifting through crafting and inventory menus, this oversight is simply unforgivable. The poor menu design is softened (thankfully) by the inclusion of touch screen support when in portable mode, but nonetheless, it makes a terrible first impression that proves to be more or less accurate of the whole game.
Once you drop into the world, sometimes inexplicably dragged up in the air several yards because of a loading error, what you do next is entirely up to you. Or, at least it will be if the RNG doesn’t laugh in your face. Upon our first experience dropping into our fresh, new world, our character spawned in the middle of an ocean and was promptly savaged by a level 60 Megalodon Shark that appeared to have been waiting for us to descend from the heavens. After a few more attempts that all ended with the same Megalodon spawn-killing us, we opted for one of the other spawn locations – something far on the other end of the map that was blessedly on land. Spawning there, we were instead greeted by an equally high-level werewolf which also seemed to have been waiting for our arrival.
This should tell you about all that you need to know about PixARK; it’s a game that’s entirely and bafflingly oblivious to the actual end user experience. Once we finally did manage to find a spawn location that wasn’t closely monitored by voracious apex predators, we were greeted with imprecise and input-lag laden controls that make the very act of simple movement a chore. There’s no reticle indicating what your character is targeting, so if you want to, say, dig up the dirt around you to build yourself a simple hut, it’s anybody guess whether the block your character is pointed at will actually be the one that gets destroyed. Strangely enough, a reticle appears when you have certain weapons equipped, but then disappears if you switch to anything else. It's obvious from the mountain of minor annoyances like this that PixARK simply doesn't care about things like whether or not you're having fun.
There are some RPG-lite mechanics included, too, but these prove to be uninteresting at best and downright tedious at worst. Your character has standard stats like health and stamina, but others, like temperature or hunger, ensure that you constantly have to be on the lookout for things like food and favorable shelter. Randomized post boxes are scattered about the world offering up side quests that ask you to perform asinine activities like killing a certain number of woodland creatures or taming one with a certain berry, and completing these will grant you a meager amount of XP. Or, if you don’t feel like doing the busy work, you can sit around and do literally nothing, as your character gains XP every second. When you level up, your character can then spend a certain amount of Skill Points on new, craftable recipes, many of which only feel cosmetically different from earlier equipment. Then there’s the issue of how the message “LEVEL UP IS AVAILABLE! Access Inventory To Apply Skill Points!” will, no joke, permanently plaster itself across the top of your screen after your first level up, covering up previously readable portions of the menu in the process. Spending said skill points down to zero does nothing to get rid of this message, it sticks around like a bad rash whether you’re in the menus or playing around in the overworld.
Those of you that prefer to play your survival games with friends will be pleased to know that there’s both local and online multiplayer, but this comes with the caveat that performance may vary. Also, the local support requires your friend(s) to have their own Switch with a copy of the game; there’s no split-screen multiplayer to speak of here. Servers can hold up to 64 players at once, though most of the ones we encountered only had about a dozen people playing at most, and if you’d like to, you can create clans with these people or choose to fight them instead. Those of you who are somehow enamoured by the gameplay offered in PixARK will no doubt be pleased with the opportunities that multiplayer affords you, but the omission of split-screen is another of many disappointments with this release that’s tough to overlook any way you cut it.
From a performance standpoint, you can probably already guess how PixARK fares. The framerate, which appears to be trying its best to reach 30 FPS, hovers in the 20 FPS range and oscillates wildly depending on what’s happening on screen. Meanwhile, the draw distance remains disappointingly short – you’re always encircled by a mildly distant cloud of bluish-grey fog – and pop-in is rampant, with things like animals and whole mountains seemingly emerging out of nowhere on a relatively frequent basis. The real shame of this is that PixArk actually possess a fairly eye-catching art style; the voxel-based dinosaurs are a real treat to see, and even if the blockish aesthetic has been done to death already, it’s executed here in a brightly-coloured way that possesses a sort of otherworldly beauty that, in a better game, could prove to be effective. It doesn’t help, either, that the low resolution – whether docked or portable – gives the visuals a furry, unfocused look that’s noticeably lower than most software on the Switch.
A critical talking point that we feel needs to be reiterated is how much PixARK feels like an unfinished game. The original PixARK launched for the PC on Steam’s Early Access program in early 2018 and this version on the Switch feels equally like a rough framework for what could eventually become a respectable retail release. Presumably, the developers have a plan in place for how they’re going to keep incrementally updating the game into a more complete product, because the product currently available is not a completed, quality-tested experience. Those of you that don’t have enough faith in the developers to eventually make good on this potential will want to steer clear, as there’s really no way of knowing whether PixARK will ever become much more than the hastily made effort we see here.
Conclusion
In its current state, PixARK on the Switch is a poorly optimized, unenjoyable, and otherwise weak approximation of the Minecraft experience that in no way delivers value equivalent to the money you’re paying for it. Considering it comes with a $40 price tag at the time of writing, this unfinished and unpolished game is borderline robbing you of your hard-earned money and time that could be so much better spent on just about anything else you can think of. We would strongly urge you to take a hard pass on PixARK, as it offers a lacklustre survival experience that’s not even worth the memory it’ll take up on your SD Card; life’s much too short to be wasted on poorly made games such as this.
Comments 49
Ouch...
Well, play Portal Knights or Dragon Quest Builders 2 for something better.
YYEEEEEEOOOUCH
OH MAMA THATS A SPICY REVIEW
Glad I rented this. Got stuck inside a block of dirt and drowned within an hour. Sent back immediately
I didn't think this could be worse than the normal version of ARK Survival, but they somehow did it.
Aww man! I LOVE a good bad review. I’ll enjoy this read when I get home from work. A two? Excellent!
It takes guts releasing a game like this on a system where Minecraft is also an option.
@Dodger what console or system could they release it to that doesn't have minecraft as an option?
I bought this digitally and it is indeed horrible. The menus (which you spend a lot of time in) were clearly development for a mouse and are frustratingly clunky using a controller.
All that being said, I am not going to delete it but leave it as a reminder as to why I usually buy physical.
With Ark: Survival Evolved and now this, it's very clear this publisher doesn't give a damn about Switch experiences. Some of the 'glitches' mentioned in this review surely can't have got through testing levels!? Bizarre, shame on them for the pricing and sadly I think it will sell at least a bit from the lovely art style. Those poor, poor disappointed 8 year olds.
Mmmmmm... I can just taste the salt from here
Ouch! haha wasn't interested before and now im definitely not
Wow, considering Minecraft runs perfectly at 60 fps at high resolution this is sad indeed. I hope they patch the game to run at 60 fps.
As for performance, the game runs at 28~30fps most of the time, Minecraft before the bedrock update was running at very stable 60fps, but AFTER the bedrock update the game became a bigger mess with every switch update (a lot of lag, issues with multiplayer, crashes, just look on Reddit how many people complain)
Test Minecraft NOW before comparing performance, PixArk is more a 5 or 6 game.
@60frames-please since the bedrock update Minecraft became a mess on the Switch, so forget that 60fps (it's lower)
It was great before that update.
Have not played this myself but my 7 year old has been having quite some fun with it the last week. Then again, he does not care for 60fps or lack luster menus, he is happy he can ride and fly on Dino’s.
I'm happy that you guys released a review, I was just about to buy this steaming pile of crap.
Score sounds generous tbf
Props for a bunch of detailedly objective reports on the game's issues in the article. No props for how the article still manages to screw the overall impression with a borderline obscenity in the subtitle.
Its got to be one of the most incompetent studios in the world at the moment.
Ark survival was a complete disaster, where the devs pulled some very questionable (read immoral) stunts on their customers.
Then, after leaving the PC community high and dry, they dumped one disaster console port after the other on each system.
And now they try again with a Minecraft Ark game that is even worse than the original.
These devs seriously have no shame whatsoever! /facepalm
@Indominus_B Judgement seems to be warranted given the issues discussed in the review. Nintendo World Report also gave it the same score.
@Indominus_B like I said, there IS some due credit for the experiences described (for one, it's not unfair to start having questions for procedural world generation that allows for unwinnable 10 second scenarios, something even meaner roguelikes try to avoid). But there's no denying how often the narrative falls into the pits of yellow press tone and vocabulary, and wishing for the described fiction product to "go extinct" is extremely bad taste even in the realm of joking.
My hope is that unlike what the developers did with ARK, this one will receive some support and not get dumped like a mouldy sack of potatoes. Despite the review, there is potential here. They just have a crap tonne of glitches that need fixing and content to add, if certain things like the obelisks doing nothing isn’t just another glitch.
Like some of you, I bought the game too, played it and quickly tired of its clunky controls and very annoying bugs. Found a lot of them in the short time I played. However my 6 year old loves the game. He loves flying around on his dragon.
I also can’t help but wonder if this game is still is early access. Like the review states, it doesn’t seem to be finished. Is a lot of money to put out for an unfinished game.
On a lighter note. Dragon Quest builders 2 seems to look promising. Loved the first one, so far I’m really looking forward to the second.
@nhSnork I'm confused. "go extinct" is horrible to say, how? The game features loads of dinosaurs and prehistoric things, it fits as a byline that leans into the overall impression.
I'm surprised this game fared worse that Ark itself, I would think this title would be harder to mess up. And no, Wildcard Studios doesn't really care about any bugs or issues, they're not gonna patch or even respond to QA questions.
@Indominus_B Well if that’s where you at then I understand. I usually feel more inclined to trust evaluations from people who have journalistic credentials rather than random people with Twitter accounts. I think some aspects of good journalism have fell prey to economic incentive (clickbait and corporate handouts) but in general it’s better than the social media abyss. I definitely wouldn’t cite this review as part of the problem.
LOL.
Wait for Dragon Quest Builders 2, guys!
Honestly did anyone REALLY expect any different? Really? Did you? Did you really?
WWE 2K19: YA BETTER BELIEVE THAT I’M THE WORST GAME ON THE SWITCH, BOTHER!!!
Ark Survival Evolved: RAAAAARRRRGHH!!!!
PixARK: Hold my cuboid beer.
Dang! saved my SD card some storage for now.
Oh man.
See, now THIS is a bad release. Games like Assassins Creed 3 are at the upper end of the spectrum. Solid release that I'm rather enjoying. THIS is a game worth railing against. THIS is when you say a game is worthless
@nhSnork @HobbitGamer I'm confused too. The subtitle references the fact that:
A) The game is set in a world containing dinosaurs
And
B) It sucks
What's obscene about that?
@Damo @HobbitGamer guys, "confused" is my line here. I even spelled it out in another comment above - the subtitle ends up expressing (unless British English has significantly modified the verb 'let' while I wasn't looking) the wish for the subject to "go extinct". The article makes the author's "the game sucks" point transparent as it is, and I'm well aware of this site's (and quite a few others') penchant for punny subtitles - there have been pretty good ones, actually. But if the issue with basically wishing for a fiction product to stop existing has to be explained in some kind of simpler terms, we have an even bleaker situation than even an incurable anti-fan cynic like me can readily imagine in such an environment.🙄
@Dromosus Vrrroom in the Night Sky: phew, looks like people have FINALLY got off my case, better late than never.
@Morpheel Since Minecraft is available on any platform, I'd be comfortable saying that it takes a lot of guts to release a bad Minecraft-style game for a higher price on any platform.
Not gonna lie... this was destined to be bad
Just played for a little while. Watching my son play got me wondering. Anyway, found more bugs that I hadn’t found before. Lol. Also looked up the twitter page. The game is still in early access, which is interesting. In the state it’s in, it is far from worth the money that’s being asked. I’ve wiped my profile and don’t plan to play this thing again, unless some serious patching occurs. I’d get rid of it, but my son loves it.
@nhSnork I normally wish waste products to no longer exist, that’s why I own a toilet. This is the journalistic equivalent of a toilet flushing.
@nessisonett this is the journalistic equivalent of toilet filling. That, and actual waste products don't even magically cease to exist the moment they're flushed (otherwise indoor plumbing would be a quality solution for dealing with fanship, a waste product of fiction/audience resonance), but it's beside the point here.
@nhSnork I think the bleak situation is that the humor or the byline is being taken way too seriously. But to each their own, I suppose 😁
from ARK Survival to PixARK, Snail Games is stagnate.
Anyone worked out what the actual obscenity @nhSnork is referring to is yet?
@Anti-Matter Definitively getting Builders 2 myself next month. I'd already liked the mish-mash of RPG narrative hidden in a block-building game in Builders 1 and Builders 2 already seem set to have already improved on everything I wanted it to.
Plus, with the improved villager with tons of new mechanics involving them and much larger count(the Vacant Island hub can house upward of 20 to 60 villagers. A stark improvement over the mere 13 or so villagers of Builders 1's Terra Incognita), Builders 2 seem to be taking Builders 1's "Dragon Quest meets Minecraft" well into "Dragon Quest meet Dwarf Fortress Lite" territories.
Good lord! With an absolutely scathing review like this and it still gets a 2, what has to happen to warrant a 1?!
Does the game need to damage your console????
What would you expect from a game that is a spin of from a title that was and is in a buggy and messy state since open access / green light? To make it even better they got "technical advice and input" from the arc devs. Bound to suck.
Ahh what a shame, I wanted to get this game for the wifey.
She probaly whould enyoy it though, wait for a big discount
I thought NintendoLife never gives out score below 4...so refreshing to see a 2....please give out 1 and 0 sometime in the future
@HobbitGamer the humour aspect of it all is something I believe I've already commented on, too.
@Heavyarms55 I know right? Haven't seen a single 1/10 in the time I've been here. So annoying.
@TheAwesomeBowser I mean, it isn't like I want a 1/10 game, but I want to know just how bad it would have to be to warrant such a rating! I mean they literally say this game isn't worth the space on you memory card, let alone the 40 dollar price tag. But still gave it a 2/10. I have to assume that to get a 1/10 it must need to be nonfunctional. Like, actually, literally, unplayable. As in, you put in in your console and it just doesn't work.
@Heavyarms55 I'd agree with this. In my mind, a game can only be a 1 if it is literally unplayable. PixArk clears that, but that's about it.
Created an account just to comment:
Maybe I have a different version from the review version because I have not experienced the things mentioned in this review. I have around 20 hours play time in now and while I have had some frustrations with the game (mostly dying from venturing out), I personally believe the game handles quite well.
Once, I level up my character the 'Level up message' goes away. And it does not get in the way of anything while it is up on the screen. I have not experienced any dip in FPS except once, when I was creating 300+ stone arrows. Admittedly navigating the menus can be a pain, but it is not that game-breaking IMO.
There are some things that could be tweaked, but I don't think that the game deserves a 2. I have had a lot of fun with it and will continue to play because it is somewhat addicting and satisfying.
Tap here to load 49 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...