It s a little-known fact that the ARK in ARK: Survival Evolved is in fact short for arsebark . And that s fitting, because that s exactly what its latest DLC, Genesis, is like: a fart. And what a fart. Not an abrupt, spluttering guff, nor an undulating trouser howl that reduces its culprit to ever more contorted grimaces of shame as it continues. No, ARK: Genesis is a proper, merciless, nine-tins-of-beans ripper, unleashed in a crowded lift on a wet Monday morning.
I wouldn t be half so childish if the developers hadn’t already made a fortune from pre-orders, or if Genesis wasn’t so bloatedly overpriced. I’d be reasonable, even, if it seemed they had attempted something beautiful and ambitious here and fallen short. But they haven t. After hyping Genesis to high heaven, they ve released an expansion that manages to negate everything that conceivably made it possible to call ARK a flawed masterpiece, while retaining every iota of the game-busting jank that made it feel like a shoddy, never-ending beta test.