Only two doors remain closed on the Advent calendar (I’m saving today’s choccie for a filling afternoon snack) and tension is mounting. What will these final two doors reveal? Will my fun-size Mars bar come in a festive wrapper? Will it have a picture of a raptor Santa? Wait, no, that’s Ark: Survival Evolved [official site]. The Early Access survive ‘em up has launched its Christmas update, and Santy Claws is feeling giving.

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Today’s the day our Stateside friends move their belts up a notch after yesterday’s mashed potatoes and turkey binge. Thanksgiving may be over for another year, but Ark: Survival Evolved [official site] is still running its Turkey Trial event until Tuesday, December 1st. It’s a good old-fashioned turkey hunt, with the twist that harvesting their ‘Super Turkey Wishbones’ will let you craft something special. And there are fire-breathing DodoRexs. Yeah. Need to see that action? I don’t blame you:

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Peel off my scalp, saw through my cranium, then shake the goop out into a video game, and you’ll either find yourself in either a cyberpunk girl gang up to no good or dark icy waters filled with friendly and frightful creatures. I’m now suspicious of the scab I found on the back of my head this morning, as Ark: Survival Evolved [official site] has dived into the latter with its latest Early Access update yesterday. Giant anglerfish and friendly penguins are the stuff my dreams are made of.

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Colossal, strong, initially sluggish but quick to anger, growing stronger when enraged and even turning on allies? Aye, the latest dinosaur added to Ark: Survival Evolved [official site] is basically the Hulk as a dinosaur. The survive ‘em up’s latest Early Access update brings the Giganotosaurus, a honking great dino who’ll be a little hostile even if you do manage to tame it, as well as swords and shields for fancier melee. Here, come see how nasty this new dino is:

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We do post about Ark: Survival Evolved [official site] an awful lot for an Early Access multiplayer sandbox survival game (of which there are oh so many), but that’s mostly because it keeps adding fancy cool things. This post? This is about how its Halloween update has spooky skeletal dinosaurs roaming around, a giant fire-breathing DodoRex to fear, pumpkins to carve, and other eerie additions that are difficult for me to ignore. Look at these cool things:

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As a wise man once said, “Life, uh, finds a way.” In Ark: Survival Evolved [official site], you can now help life along: the survival game’s latest Early Access update adds the ability to breed two dinosaurs, creating a cute new baby dino with a mix of traits from its parents. Also, an underwater dinosaur with a floating platform on its back, which looks like a battleship. You can find a video below.

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ARK: Survival Evolved [official site] plans to include over 100 unique prehistoric pets by the time it’s ready for full release. During a Reddit AMA last night, developers Studio Wildcard confirmed it hopes to introduce a century of habitat-specific creatures once the game is done with Early Access, after introducing us to winged beast Quetz earlier this week. Furthermore, ARK’s upcoming Halloween update will give players the chance to tame otherworldly monstrosities that will carry over into the main game. Scared? Me neither. Hop inside for more. Go on, you first.

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Following last week’s rather extensive update, ARK: Survival Evolved [official site] has welcomed a new species of dinosaur to its shores – a “massive flying battleship” creature identified as Quetzalcoatlus that goes by the synonym Quetz.

Although I’d have to question the physical plausibility of this particular beast – something we’ve put to experts in the past – hopping aboard a Quetz and taking to the skies does look like fun, if the trailer below is anything to go by.

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There’s something so straightforward about the populist appeal of Ark: Survival Evolved [official site] that I find it charming. “Hey, what if we made a dinosaur game that wasn’t broken?” Alright. “Hey, what if you could ride the dinosaurs?” Sure, whatever. “What if there was a dinosaur that could roll around like Sonic?” Uh-huh, cool.

The latest update seems designed in a similar fashion, answering “OK yes” to questions like “What if there was a snow setting?” and “What if you could ride direwolves like those in that fantasy series everyone likes so much?” You’ll find a video of that and more below.

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I play Ark: Survival Evolved [official site] mostly to look at its dinosaurs. I mean, who wouldn t? But since the very first video that came out about the game, I ve wondered how close to modern paleontological thinking they are.

I m interested in all this stuff because for the past few years I ve been reading a wonderfully When the Internet Was Great-style blog called Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs, which documents representations of dinosaurs, mostly from old picture books, many of which I pored over when I was little, and critiques them according to current scientific thinking. So I asked one of its writers, Marc Vincent, about how games and popular culture depict dinosaurs, and to look at a few of Ark s. Guess what? Ark s dinosaurs aren t very dinosaury.

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