Ark: Survival Evolved vs Dark Souls: Prepare to Die
Ark: Survival Evolved
Ark: Survival Evolved is a hardcore, prehistoric-themed (this means dinosaurs... lots and lots of them), survival sandbox MMO set in an astoundingly gorgeous persistent world where everybody is fair game. There is insane amount of resources that you can harvest, items you can craft and dinosaurs that you can tame. Not to mention, you can and will probably need to build shelters for yourself and your tamed beasts, and of course, defend it from other players.Being a hardcore survival game, you'll also need to take care to feed both you and your dinosaurs and that death is pretty permanent in this game. Even the tools you craft has durability that will gradually wear down when used. It might be difficult to be a solo player and thus, you are often encouraged to team up whenever you can.
Ark: Survival Evolved is definitely not the sort of game to play if you're easily frustrated. The learning curve - let alone the "survival curve" - can be pretty steep especially when you keep getting killed or harassed by other, better equipped survivors.
Dark Souls: Prepare to Die
Dark Souls: Prepare to Die is one of the scariest and hardcore action role-playing game that's set in a dark fantasy world filled with demons, monsters, and even dragons. Unlike most games where dying is heavily penalized, this game actually lets you use every one of your deaths as a stepping stone to learn the where to avoid and where to press on... so expect to die... a lot. Sometimes, the deaths of the other players - their spirits, so to speak - will also show up in your game so you can learn from their mistakes before you atttempt a challenging part of the game.By playing, you'll be able to improve your mastery over weapons, spells, and other combat mechanics which will in turn help you progress and access tougher challenges. This Prepare to Die edition also features new mechanics, including Bonfires which serve as check points and will replenish your health and magic but at a pretty heavy cost - all the mobs you've killed will respawn. Dark Souls is a networked game and as such, you may bump into other players while dungeon crawling which may result in an impromptu PvP battle, or you can also work together with other players to take down difficult bosses.
Dark Souls have earned a name of itself for being incredibly punishing - there will be a lot of dying - and for being creepy as af, but it is also a game that's pretty unique, and to some extent, revolutionary since many of the game mechanics present in this game isn't even heard of let alone used in any other games.