Many of the elements are also reduced from 3D objects to flat textures along the ground. It’s worth noting I was playing at 4K on the Android TV app, but the experience is identical playing with a 1080p cap on the web app from a PC.Īnimations are also of extremely low quality, with dinosaurs showing with janky movements and environmental elements such as plants simply freezing as they’ve been harvested and taking a few seconds to disappear. Despite the lower frame rate, though, the game still lags at random and quite often. This further translates to gameplay, where the game is firstly running at 30fps, well behind most other Stadia titles that at least offer a 60fps mode.

That’s a far cry from what other ports allow, and it’s a real hindrance in the game since the settings as they stand today don’t seem to allow the game to render objects from a reasonable distance. Players are only able to control camera settings, light bloom/shafts, and motion blur. First off, there are almost no video settings in the game. The bigger issue with ARK on Stadia comes with the actual gameplay.

This is only notable because over on Xbox Game Pass, ARK comes in the “Explorer’s Edition,” which includes those first three packs for free. Aberration, Extinction, and Scorched Earth are all $10 add-ons while the Genesis Season Pass costs $29.99. The version of ARK being given out on Stadia Pro is the base game with none of the four expansion packs.

However, it’s hard to say that will come to pass, given the current state of the port. My wife’s PC has an entire SSD dedicated to the game because it filled up the original drive. On PC, it can easily eat up 200 GB or more after adding DLC or even just updates, which often inflate the storage needed. Now, ARK: Survival Evolved is available on Google Stadia, a cloud platform where it could thrive, thanks to powerful servers behind the scenes and the lack of downloads, the latter of which can be a real hindrance in playing the game, as any PC player such as myself will tell you. The game is available on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and there are even ports on Nintendo Switch and mobile phones. The game first launched in 2015 by Studio Wildcard and is still being developed today, with the game’s “Genesis” expansion having just released its final installment in June on other platforms. However, the hotly anticipated title is arriving in a lackluster fashion.īacktracking, ARK: Survival Evolved is an open-world game that takes place on a mysterious island inhabited by dinosaurs and other creatures where players are on a mission of survival to build armor, bases, weapons, and more. Surprise! Months after it was originally slated to arrive, ARK: Survival Evolved has finally made its way to Google Stadia today, and as promised, it’s a free addition to the Stadia Pro lineup.

Game ark survival evolved pc