PixARK

While this sandbox game has a decent amount of creativity, the survival elements can overwhelm and drown out the gameplay with its complexity. PixARK tries to straddle the main gameplay objectives of many modern sandbox games: Create or Survive. Players are either given a vast array of tools to build to their hearts' content or they're dropped into a harsh environment and forced to gather what they can find to craft what they need to live to see the next day. PixARK attempts to bring both of these worlds together, mixing the survival mechanics and setting of ARK: Survival Evolved with the more family-friendly feel of games like Minecraft or Lego Worlds. While there's definitely some interesting and even fun potential in patching together these two distinct gameplay styles, it's still far from a seamless experience.

For starters, PixARK leans a little too heavily into the whole "survival" theme from ARK, especially early on. Just about everything in the world seems to be out to kill you, and does so with some frustrating regularity. The randomness of the procedurally generated worlds means its entirely possible to constantly get overpowered by hostile creatures with no way to defend yourself. This isn't helped by the fact that combat, even at its best, is sluggish, awkward, and all but useless. Imagine for a second trying to fend off a T-Rex with a twig; that's basically what you're dealing with. You also need to keep a constant eye on things like your character's hunger, thirst, and even body temperature. It's not a casual experience by any means. But despite these complications, once you start to adjust to the difficulty and complexities of the game, a lot of fun options begin to open up. Taming and using animals, especially dinosaurs, feels unique among the usual sandbox style games. And there's no shortage of things to craft and use in new and inventive ways, but only if you live long enough and level up enough to get access to these parts of the game.