Finding your first meal in Ark: Survival Evolved can be tough, especially if you aren’t the type of person who wants to survive off of berries for a long time. Most of the dinosaurs that you run across are going to be tough to take out as a new player, but we’ll share some helpful secrets that will help you score some meat, and we’ll even show you how to cook it and get some water to help you survive, because you’ll need to know how to get food and water in Ark: Survival Evolved.
How to Get Food and Water
Food and water are two vital parts of Ark: Survival Evolved, and if you hope to survive for any length of time, you’re going to need to learn how to manage these two resources as quickly as possible. At the start of your character’s life, it might not seem like there is much hope for your survival, as your food and water go down quite quickly, but with a little help from yours truly, we’ll have you stocking up on dino meat and cooking over your own fire in no time.
The first thing you need to do to get food is pick berries from bushes. Stay away from Stimberries and Narcoberries, but other berries are free game at any point. They won’t be the most filling meals, but that’s not an issue, as you’ll be working your way up to meat very soon. Once you have the essentials, and you’re staying alive, then you’re going to want to make yourself a Spear. You can learn the Engram as you level up, and it will be available pretty early on.
We’d actually suggest making a few of these spears if you can, as you can also throw them at your target, allowing you to attack from a range as well as up close. This is great for attacking carnivorous beasts, as you can attack, then run to a better vantage point and attack again.
The key to getting dino meat early on is to look for small dinos that won’t attack back, or that won’t kill you if they do attack back. Dinos like Dodo’s are perfect for this, as they attack back, which means you won’t have to chase them down, but they also take a while to kill you, so long as you don’t simply stand still and let them take you down.
As for finding water, you can easily drink any of the water on the island by simply walking up to it and pressing the use button on your controller. This will allow you to fill up your water supply so that you can keep on chugging. For more help in Ark: Survival Evolved, be sure to check out our other guides like how to build your first house and how to tame a dinosaur.
