As someone who has well over 1500 hours in Tarkov, starting back in 2017, this game is great. It's genuinely a fresh breath of air and feels like a more casual Tarkov while still feeling hardcore enough to be just as satisfying. The maps are good, gun play is great and there are so many Quality of Life features that Tarkov should really take notes on and the best part is that it isn't infested with cheating. Now there are definitely cheaters but its few and far between.

I believe that if you liked Tarkov give this a shot because I 100% feel like this is a better iteration as Tarkov is ruined these days by cheaters and BattleStates horrible business practices.

Game Indeed Runs Horribly. So Sad. Hopefully they optimize this mess.

Its Ark. It always will be Ark. The Games Addicting, Its Fun, Its Unique. In Fact There Is Nothing Else Like It..... Then There Is The Ugly Side. Ark Ascended Is a Horrible Unoptimized Burning Garbage Bin of A Mess. If You Have The Literal BEST Specs In Your PC Then You MIGHT Be Able To Run 60 FPS at 1080p. For Everyone Else? You Have To Lower Your Graphics Into The Ground and Run Console Commands That Remove Clouds, Fog, Shadows, Water Reflections, Dynamic Lighting and More. Im Not Kidding. To Play This Game at 1080p, 60 FPS on a PC that Is Not From NASA You Basically Get Rid of The ENTIRE Selling Point of Ark Ascended. But Hey, You Are Playing Ark With Mods So That Counts For Something.....Right?

why tf are you all crying? they censored nudity. blood/gore is still the same holy. Crying because you cant seem some? fkn Mongoloids

Literally The Greatest Survival Game Ever Made. Its Perfect And I Love Every Single Bit of It

Yes

For The People That Say "Nobody Asked For This"...... That Is The Point, It Is An Experiment

ok LISTEN UP. This is the only review you will need to sort through all of the WAAAAAA WATER reviews.
The Forever Winter is not a bad concept at all and I do understand that it is Early Access, Im just telling you like it is at the moment of me writing this, that is all. I want this game to get better I WANT you guys to buy it to support them in creating this awesome concept but thats really all it feels like at the moment, a concept rather than a game to play.

THE WATER MECHANIC
Ill address the terrible no good big bad water mechanic that EVERYONE cries about first. Its genuinely not bad. At least not anymore. So for anyone who doesn't know the worst thing that can happen to you is whats called a "Water Death" when you run out of water you get robbed and lose EVERYTHING. Weapons. Ammo. Items. Everything in your stash, tho you do keep character Prestige which is the most grindy part of the game and they added a Secure Vault that allows up to 10 MILLION Creds (Which is A LOT of money) and 10 Items (Not a lot but the creds is what matters) where even if you experience a water death you will NOT lose. ANYWAYS the water is not bad in the least bit. Water is incredibly easy to get and becomes INCREDIBLY easier to get when you have a better Rig which took me only 15 hours of playtime to get the two most expensive Rigs in the game allowing me to get 8 water per 15 minute run to a max of 55 with the non upgraded water tank (Its goes up to 99 days) Taking me a whopping 2 hours of gameplay to get to 55 IRL days of water, INCREDIBLY easy. Now lets say you run of out water from taking an extended break from the game. What happens when you log back on and you are out of water? you log on to your base being raided so you have to fend them off or lose everything. You win? you keep everything and go about your day. You lose? you lost everything. Now this WAS a problem because these said Raiders were initially Overpowered as hell. Now they are not. You still need decent gear and weapons to fend them off but its a lot more achievable AND thats not including the Turrets you can buy, WHICH ARE VERY CHEAP, that makes fending off raiders STUPID easy. So now there literally ZERO reason to fear a water death as long as you put 15 hours into the game to grind the water and the turrets and done. Water is no issue. To even further prove that the water mechanic isn't bad, you can buy upgrades called water bots that bring you 1-4 water Every Two Days...Forever. Albeit the bots do attract Raiders but again as long as you have turrets its no problem.

The Pros
*Awesome Scavs to play (Which are pretty diverse)
*Fantastic Atmosphere
*Original Enemies
*Awesome Lore (go onto their wiki and read a bit on some enemies etc, its genuinely cool)

The Cons
*Weapons/Weapon Handling/Weapon Customization. Most of the weapons in the game feel ok enough. Except for the guns that when you ADS they are not lined up correctly, shooting 2 feet to the left of where you are aiming or some guns having such terrible bloom/recoil it makes the gun not fun to use or the fact that the AK and RPK are the second and third gun you get access to and nothing else is as customizable nor does any gun do as much damage. For example The Scar .50, Its terrible. Not only does it do LESS damage than the AK and RPK it holds less ammunition and CANT be suppressed and there are many guns like this. There is no incentive to use other weapons, other than the AK, RPK, Painless(.50 Cal Heavy Machine Gun) and a grenade launcher. That is it, that is end game in terms of weapons. AK/RPK for the main gun, Painless for when you want to murder everything and not care about stealth, and Grenade Launcher to kill small mechs.

*The Movement Is Bad atm. If you have played any of the Gears Of War titles its the same movement to where its omnidirectional movement when not sprinting and it lock your camera in the direction you going when you are sprinting EXCEPT it feels wonky as hell and unlike Gears, There is no A or D input when sprinting. so you are just dragging your whole damn arm across the mouse pad to go where you want. Oh and by the way it gets worse and more clunky the more weight you have on you.

*The Stealth. It WAS good but now? not so much. So let me break it down. Each character has a invisible 6 meter circle around them (Except for Gunhead, his is 12 meters) and this circle also extended above and below you where if anything enters while you are sitting still and not moving they will begin to detect you (Unless you are behind something). Until a recent update to where enemies detect you through walls and if think, well that is not that bad. Yknow the 6/12 meter circle around you? yea well the circle now goes infinitely straight above you and below you so no matter when an enemy is below you or above they will instant agro to you. Now I know they probably will fix this soon (Hopefully) but as of right now Stealth is completely broken and that is literally why this game was made, for stealth.