Ark: Survival Evolved vs Ylands
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.
Ylands
Ylands is a sandbox adventure game that has a gameplay that's a lot like a massively expanded version of Minecraft with a lot more resources for you to gather, items to craft, and amazing things to build. Instead of being "just a game", Ylands is more like a platform, much like Roblox is, where players are given the tools to create whatever worlds or games they like, be it a fun go-kart racing game that's inspired from Lega Racers or even a watery world where epic pirate-themed naval battles can take place. The worlds are completely interactive as well and every action you do will modify, no matter how slightly, the game environment of that segment of the world you happen to be in. In fact, if you change a terrain and populate it with an entirely different diversity of flora and fauna, you can basically change the climate system there.Unlike Minecraft though, Ylands has opted for a more polygonal appearance which gave it the extra leverage it needed to overcome the painful dismissal and degratory label of being simply a "Minecraft clone" - which admittedly, Ylands is most definitely not. The game has so much going for it and players truly have all the freedom within the game's pretty wide parameters to literally create anything they like. Of course, the game also supports sharing, so you can let other players in Yland enjoy that (for example) crazy maze-running game you've just made!
Ylands is most certainly impressive to say the least. However, due to its indie origins, not many players know about the game, let alone buy it on Steam. So, if you really like Minecraft-like sandbox games, you simply must give this game a try, and if you've had a great time there, be sure to recommend it to your friends or even buy it for them as their Christmas/ birthday gift!