u/Sn0wy0wl_

I am generally VERY optimistic / positive when it comes to new maps. I've enjoyed pretty much every single release and most of my complaints about it come down to "its buggy" and that's it. Even in Ascended, I loved all of the remasters and Lost Colony might be my favourite map of all time.

That being said, the Genesis remaster was a complete disservice to the map. They put all the new content into the Ocean, and in my opinion it flopped. This isn't even about the emptiness of the underwater itself, unless you play with low graphics settings it's really not that big an issue. But I have so many problems with the ocean, the main one being that it doesn't really serve a purpose?

EVERYTHING you need is in the original ocean. All the missions, all the good underwater spawns, and the boss. Everything outside that just.. kind of exists? It's a massive ocean with pretty much nothing to do and no reason to explore outside of a few (optional) missions with no real reason to complete them. There's genuinely nothing to do because everything you could want is in the original ocean.

I wouldn't have had as big an issue with it if the Ocean was used as the primary travel component since theres no fliers, but nope! We still have to teleport between biomes. I was genuinely surprised that the teleportation system still existed because I assumed the point of adding an expansive ocean and new boats was for travel purposes? Because of all this, the Ocean just feels incredibly disconnected from everything else. Before it felt like another biome because of how contained it was like the rest of them, now it just feels like I'm playing an entirely different map. Literally anything would have been more interesting than the teleports, even something similar to the biome domes from Extinction would have been better.

What really bothers me is that all of this just feels like a test for Ark Atlantis which is coming at the start of 2027. They gave us all these new features that don't function well with the map, but would work great on a full ocean map. When Atlantis gets released and has actual uses for the new boats, what was special about Genesis is going to end up as just a worse version of it, and the map will ultimately end up unpopular like it was before.

Also, can we talk about the price tag on tides of fortune? 16 pounds for 2 creatures and just above 10 items/structures. Bob's Tall Tales, which I already thought was overpriced, covers THREE ENTIRE MAPS, totaling 4 creatures and nearly 100 items/structures. That's genuinely insane.

There are however, some things I did like about the map.

1. The water physics are awesome. It's not going to be special once it's a thing on every map, but right now it feels amazing and sailing has never felt this good in this game.

2. The bog looks gorgeous. It always did, but in the new engine it's just a on a new level. Definitely where I'm gonna build my main base.

3. The palaeoctopus is fun. It's not my favourite and I think there's something to be said about power creep with the new creatures, but it's a ton of fun to use.

4. New X-Creatures

And.. that's pretty much it. I can't say there's anything else I'm genuinely excited by. Every time someone complains there's always at least one person in the comments who just goes "I'm having fun, all you do is complain." Like, okay yes, I'm also having fun. It's ark and I haven't played Genesis in years. But I can have fun while acknowledging this is incredibly disappointing. We didn't even get a trailer for the map this time. Genesis already felt like such an unfinished map and now it just feels more unfinished. I really do hope Genesis 2 is some kind of masterpiece, but considering it's less than a year away, I'm not feeling to great about it.

Genesis 1 deserved better.