Ark Legends: Beginner’s guide - everything you need to know to get started

Ark Legends, the eagerly anticipated mobile RPG from Melting Games, is venturing ever closer to its global release following its soft-launch today on Android in Canada and Indonesia. Pre-registration is also currently underway with a host of rewards available for those who sign up, including IRL rewards such as Amazon Gift Cards and AirPods and more thanks to the game’s ongoing Lucky Draw event.

Given that Ark Legends is the very first release by the studio, it’s quite remarkable just how much content the game has to offer. To help new players digest that content a little easier, the following guide will provide a breakdown of some of Ark Legends’ core features to help get you started.

Airship

Ark Legends begins with the game’s hero (Alex) onboard the airship of Captain Jacob, which you can hop aboard at any time whenever you’re Outside or in the City by using the navigation bar in the bottom right corner of the screen. The Airship is effectively your home base, and is where you’ll manage your Heroes, purchase new items, and receive new recruits via Ark Legends’ gacha events.

Gacha events come in a number of varieties, providing random units based on Grade, Faction, and Class, or a specific hero of your choosing. The latter type of event will require you to pay a few extra Summon Tokens, but the advantage is you’ll know exactly who you’re getting, and you can choose a different Hero at any time before you commit to summoning them.

Besides Summoning Events, you’ll also find a menu in the top right which serves as your rewards section; you’ll want to check this section on a daily basis to receive gifts for consecutive log-ins and achievements earned by advancing the game’s main quest-line. For anything you don’t receive as a reward, there’s also a shop called the Grocery located in the airship to help you out; here you’ll find items like Potions (for levelling up your Heroes), Gold, and Summoning Tokens, which you can buy using Gems.

The City

Once the game intro is out of the way, Captain Jacob will set you down in Ion City - a picturesque metropolis which serves as the central hub for advancing Ark Legends’ story. You’ll interact with a number of quirky citizens and find yourself given plenty of tasks within the bustling City, which means you’ll spend a good deal of time travelling from place to place within it. If it ever gets too monotonous, you can take advantage of a really neat auto-path feature by clicking on the Quest-line Caption that appears on the left side of the screen. This will automatically send Alex on his way to his destination, letting you take a break.

Outside

The Outside effectively serves as the dungeon area of Ark Legends, which are available in two locations: The Forbidden Location and The Lost Sector.

You’ll need to venture to these locations whenever you wish to farm more materials, or net some extra experience points for your heroes. There are many items and Gear types (over 30+) in Ark Legends, so there are plenty of different dungeons to offer the materials you’re looking for.

Just make sure to take note of the strengths and weaknesses of the dungeon Boss before venturing in, as you’ll have to take on several rounds of minions before taking on the big cheese himself.

Heroes

There are three different Grades of Hero available in Ark Legends: B-Grade, A-Grade and S-Grade (each advancing in quality in that order). These Heroes will also belong to a particular Element Faction that will determine their core skills and special abilities. These types are: Earth, Wood, Fire, Water, Light, and Dark.

Last but not least, each Hero will fall into a particular Class: Mage, Tank, Warrior, Assassin, Support, Marksman, and Fighter.

Understanding these three core attributes will be essential to learning how well they perform in battle, and how best to distribute them for your formation e.g. lower Grade Support units will be best placed in the rear of the three echelons, whilst higher Grader Fighter and Tank units will serve you best when placed at the vanguard.

Ark Legends also employs a shared Mana system whereby all battle points are earned and shared by your entire team, allowing every Hero equal opportunity to build up and use their special ability. Whilst you can let auto-battle do most of the heavy lifting, it isn’t a bad idea to assume manual control once in a while to make sure the most useful attack/buff is delivered depending on the situation.

Now that we’ve scratched the surface of what Ark Legends has to offer, you can start digging deeper into what this epic RPG truly has to offer.

You can pre-register now on the official website to give Ark Legends a go as soon as it's released, or you can visit the official Facebook page and Tiktok to stay updated on all the latest developments.