How to Get Started Playing ARK: Survival Evolved

Spawn! Creating your character isn't very necessary. There is no change in stats if you make you Character Arnold 2.0 or a midget.

• The important part is choosing where to spawn! Even the good players never spawn on the north end, unless you have a death wish. You'll instantly be freezing and surrounded by more dangerous predators than you can count. As you become more experienced, you could spawn on the east or west ends, but for now, try to spawn on South 1, 2 or 3.

Survey the scene. As soon as you get up, and scratch at the strange implant in your arm, look around you. You'll probably be on a beach, with a thick jungle behind you and an endless ocean in front of you.

• Look around for resources (large boulders and tall trees) and try to spot predators. There may be some rocks on the ground that you can press E on and you would be able to pick them up without having to punch any big rocks and hurt yourself. Keep an eye out for giant crocodiles, anything that looks like a raptor, or anything with a T-rex shaped body. If you see anything, just be aware that they could notice you too! If anything is too close, you might need to move homes.

Gather some resources. You're not going to have any tools right of the bat, but you'll get to that. Now, this part is simple.

• Run up to a tree, and begin to punch it (right trigger 2 on Xbox or PS4, left click on PC), until it falls to the ground. You now probably have some thatch and maybe some wood, right? Good!
• If you are on a beach, there should be numerous rocks scattered in the sand. Run abound, picking these up (△ on PS4, Y on Xbox, E on PC).

Craft! Go into your inventory (○ on PS4, B on Xbox, hold I on PC). You'll see you have a few items there - hopefully stone, thatch, and wood. There is a tab up at the top where you can go to crafting. When you first start, you have access to two items: a torch and a pickaxe. Craft both. If you are lacking materials, continue to grab rocks, and punch trees.

Pick your engrams. Now that you have a pick, go swinging at some of those giant boulders with the pickaxe! You'll walk away with plenty of stone and flint.

• By now, you should have leveled up. Go into your inventory and under your character, there is a list of stats. Select one to increase (health, food, water, crafting speed, stamina, melee damage, etc). It will bring you into the Engram List. Here are all the things you can craft in the whole game. Some you must be a certain level to unlock. For now, chose to learn campfire and axe. Craft these.

Find food. So, your probably getting hungry, right? You can gather some food!

• Get berries: If you go up so a small bush, and begin to press △ /Y/E without a tool equipped, you begin to 'harvest' this bush, granting you fiber and different berries. All of these berries can be eaten, but they won't fill up hardly any hunger, so watch out!
• Get meat: If you want any chance of surviving, you're going to have to kill things for food. It's just impossible to live off only berries. Here are three animals that are perfect for beginners: Dodos, Lystrosaurus, and Moschops. Run up to one and repeatedly hit it with an axe. Once it is dead, keep hitting it until its corpse disappears. You will have gotten meat and hide. Now, go over to the fire, put your meat and wood in the campfire and light it. Eventually you'll be left with cooked meat! Eat this as you need it.

Make clothes and housing. Continue to level up. Choose to learn how to make cloth shirt, pants, gloves, hat and boots, and learn how to make thatch foundation, walls, doorways, roofs and doors.

• The thatch building materials require large amounts of wood, thatch and fiber. Get gathering! Once you have enough, you'll want to build a small thatch hut. It can be as big as you like, but a good start is 4 thatch foundations, 4 roofs, 7 walls, a doorway and a door, set up in a square fashion.
• You need very large amounts of fiber for cloth clothes. The boots and gloves also require hide.