The new free-to-play Ark mobile game "isn't just a port; it's a fully-fledged survival experience that rivals its console and PC counterparts" and has been downloaded over a million times

Ark: Survival Evolved has been around for almost a decade now, and a new mobile free-to-play game shows people are still interested in the series as it got over one million downloads in just 24 hours.

As reported by PCGamesN, the mobile game is incredibly popular already. It contains the original island map as well as five expansion packs, and you can still tame and ride dinosaurs into battle and play with and against others in the game's multiplayer.

As a free-to-play game, it does offer in-app purchases, like a subscription that gives you monthly bonuses or buying all the current and future expansion packs that will be added to the game through 2025.

As with a lot of mobile games, the reviews are very mixed. One one-star review reads: "The interface is absolutely dreadful. I have to press things multiple times, it is very unresponsive [...] They also removed the classic HUD and movement and replaced it with the most unintuitive mobile controles I have ever seen, they don't even make sense."

The writer of a three-star review is enjoying the game more, but notes that "even on the lowest [graphics settings] my phone is crazy hot after 10/15 mins of gameplay," so be wary of that if you want to play for a long time.

A five-star review reads: "This isn't just a port; it's a fully-fledged survival experience that rivals its console and PC counterparts." It also notes there are some lagging issues and a controller is the better way to play the game, though.

I visited my older cousin in his care home today and saw Jurassic Park 3 on the television, which really gave me the itch to get into some dinosaur action, so I downloaded Ark: Ultimate Mobile Edition to give it a quick go, but it's a chunky game. The initial download on my Android was over 1GB, and as I write this I'm waiting for an update of over 3.5GB.

There is a fun little minigame called Download Dodo to play while you wait, though. It's a lot like the little pixel game you see on Chrome browsers when the internet is down, only you have to chop down trees to find berries for the dodo and kill komodo dragons and use their meat to distract larger predators.

If you're waiting for the game to download too, check out our list of the best Android games you can play right now.