In Pokémon, capturing and battling monsters was only a part of the experience. Serious training often meant breeding creatures that could create more formidable beasts. Soon, you’ll be able to do something very similar in Ark: Survival Evolved…but with dinosaurs.
According to the developers on the Steam forums, dinosaur breeding has been pushed live to Ark: Survival Evolved. It works in the way you’d expect it to. “Two members of the same species” will be able to mate together, even if they belong to different tribes. The resulting baby dino will then inherit random traits from the parents, as well as develop its own unique characteristics. Of course, before that can happen, the dinosaur must actually be born — which means you’ll need to nurture eggs. This is easier said than done.
The developers write:
You’ll be able to selectively breed for your desired qualities and we hope to see some hardcore survivors progressively raising generations of Dinosaurs that have more refined collections of high-end traits than that which could ever be found in the wild – though be warned survivors, as this rewarding process cannot be accomplished with minimal effort. With the dangers that exist in the ARK, incubating an egg and then raising a small helpless baby Dino in real-time from hatchling to adult is no tiny task! Good luck Survivors ;)!
I can’t wait to see what Ark-specific sheenanigans this inspires. If Pokémon is any indication, it will be a hoot. I have fond memories of breeding entire boxes of reject Pokémon, all in the hopes of fostering one mega monster. It was pretty dark, actually — and this is that Pokémon is the cuter, happier game! I can already imagine the sorts of ridiculous hijinks dinosaur breeding will cause. People will steal eggs in Ark. Ark breeders will develop their equivalent of the Indominus rex, and these behemoth dinosaurs will be known and feared by the playerbase at large. Baby dinosaurs will be killed or disposed of for not being good enough. And of course, some players will become famed breeders. Just to name a few tantalising possibilities here.
You can read more about the update here.
Comments
One response to “Steam’s Big Dinosaur Game Is Becoming More Like Pokémon”
Any chance of a Tyranodactyl Rex?
Ark is a game I would love to get into but I hear the taming dinosaurs is very time consuming (up to multiple hours). Sadly these days I just can’t find that amount of time required for that. Especially when the game has persistent servers and you can easily lose everything you have slaved away for overnight.
If you want the right dinos it can take a while. There are different taming foods you can use, and the best reduce the taming time by an incredible amount. A high level rex can take upwards of 9 hours to tame with basic material, but with the best you can get it down to 2.5 hours.
Can’t stay on there long? Join a tribe!
I felt the same way and then I joined a custom server which has increased taming speed as well as gathering rates. Completely changed the game for me and made it so much more enjoyable. Maybe when the game fully releases I’ll play it on a “normal” server.