If you think staying alive in Ark: Survival Evolved’s regular mode is a challenge, try being dropped into a Hunger Games style map where the last person to survive “wins” and the arena continues to get smaller and smaller. That’s the concept behind the Survival of the Fittest game mode, where time is of the essence and every little advantage you can scrape up before the finale could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

We’ve already compiled a list of tips for surviving in Ark, but Survival of the Fittest presents such a unique challenge we decided it need a whole guide to itself. From our own personal experience in SOTF, here are some tips we came up with for coming out a winner.

Starting Off

When the games begin you’ll all be placed around a central pillar covered in a random assortment of loot. Usually it’s always a good idea to sprint in and at least get your hands on one or two bags, but if you’re in the tournament with another player it might not be necessary since the two of you can gather and craft quickly especially with the increased drop rates.

Instead it may be better to immediately head in the opposite direction, putting as much distance as you can between yourself and the other players. If you can manage to tame a dino before any of the other players you’ll be at a big advantage for when you have your first confrontation.

Picking Your Stats

Everything is increased in SOTF including XP gathered so you’ll be levelling quite fast. For the purposes of the game there are only a few stats you should consider putting your points into: health, melee damage, and stamina. The deepest water you’ll run across is waist high and berries are so plentiful that you don’t need to be worrying about running out of food.

Speed can also be a good choice if you want to play the kiting game, but the amount of bonus it gives for each point put in was reduced to almost nothing for SOTF.

For your Dinos you’ll want to focus on health and melee damage exclusively. Melee damage should be at least 300% in most cases, at which point you can start putting some points into health.

Tame Lots of Dinosaurs (like as many as possible)

Ideally as soon as the timer gets below the 30 hour remaining mark you should have yourself an army of dinosaurs. In a perfect work this would include several large carnivores like Spinos or Rex’s, but if you can’t manage that, many players have done well with large groups of high level trikes.

To get yourself around the map quick during the early stages try taming a raptor. Their saddle becomes available for crafting at lvl 15, making it one of the first ones you’ll acquire.

Carnivorous dinosaurs are much better suited in Survival of the fittest for several reasons. For one they tend to do more damage than the herbivores, especially the Rex and Spino. Two, if you have a saddle they keep you high up out of harm’s way, whereas riding a Trike you’re still low. Three, they can be rapidly healed by force feeding them meat. Herbivores heal very slowly and don’t respond to force feeding berries. You can almost instantly health a carnivore with force feeding if you’ve got the meat.

When you’re taming a carnivore always try to find some Prime Meat. Remember the drop rates are increased for everything in SOTF, so if you can take down a Stego chances are he’ll have at least one or two pieces of Prime on him. A dino will tame almost 6x as fast on prime than they will on regular meat. In SOTF that’s huge.

Be Vigilant

It looks big at first but the area in SOTF rapidly shrinks, dramatically increasing the likely hood that you’ll run into another player and whatever dinos they may have. Keep an eye out at all times and don’t spend too much time in your inventory. Many a player has been picked off while sorting through their wares, deciding which berries they want to eat first.

The death wall is also something you’ll want to keep an eye on as it moves ever inward toward the center platform. If you get caught outside of it for too long you will be instantly killed. An inglorious and embarrassing end to your survival.

Practice Your Aim

AOTF is as close to a death match as you’ll get in Ark, so you better get to practicing your aim with bows, spears, and guns. Bows and arrows are especially useful with tranq arrows since a player/ dino will usually be knocked out faster than it can be killed.

There is also no targeting reticule in Survival of the Fittest, something to consider when you’re practicing in regular mode.

Resource Drops

Resource drops can be a game changer as they often contain saddles and tools, but sometimes even advanced weapons like rocket launchers, machine guns and other gunpowder based weaponry that would take a ton of work to craft in the game. They can also be great spots for ambushes.

It’s going to be up to you to use your judgement on whether or not to go for a resource drop. If it’s coming down right next to you, no brainer, go for it and enjoy your loot. If it’s a fair distance away maybe scout it out first to make sure someone isn’t lying in wait.

Of course you can be the one laying the ambush. Gather all of the useful resources out of a drop but leave some stuff in it so that the beam remains. Go lay in wait nearby and pick off any players that come looking for easy loot.