That new Atlas game (opens in new tab), the pirate survival MMO from Grapeshot Games – a sister studio to ARK: Survival Evolved developer Studio Wildcard – got off to a rough start, to say the least. It was repeatedly delayed at the last minute, and like many Early Access survival games, it’s buggy as all get-out (and is currently sitting at a Mostly Negative rating on Steam (opens in new tab)). But according to many players, while the bugs are a big problem, there are more immediate threats with fangs and claws lurking absolutely everywhere.
Atlas has a wolf problem – not to mention an alligator, lion, and tiger problem, but it’s mostly wolves. Players have been complaining about being spawn-killed by predatory animals from day one, but it seems they only recently learned how annoying wolves in particular can be. The Atlas subreddit (opens in new tab) and Steam community forum (opens in new tab) are overflowing with posts from players who can’t go two feet without stepping on the tail of at least one incredibly angry, deadly wolf.
Reddit user JimmyBaker2323 (opens in new tab) uploaded a video featuring dozens of trapped wolves, all of which reportedly spawned within an hour. In a comment on JimmyBaker’s post, AberrantAviator (opens in new tab) shared an image of their own rapidly expanding wolf collection. In another Reddit post, Thescottishdreamer (opens in new tab) suggested building a large pen to curb the wolf infestation – but as many players on the official Atlas forums (opens in new tab) have pointed out, it’s hard to get the resources to build anything when you have wolves on your ankles from minute one.
Players have even reported respawning inside of wolves, and indeed having wolves spawn inside their homes. Truly, there is no escape. More recently, players have rallied around a post from Reddit user Rimbaldo (opens in new tab) asking for wolf spawn rates to be reduced. Others have suggested nerfing wolves directly or buffing other animals to help keep the wolves in check
Many players believe predators are suddenly a bigger problem due to an unreported nerf applied to Atlas’ firearms. There’s been no mention of this in the game’s patch notes (opens in new tab) – in fact, every time firearms have come up, it was for a buff of some kind – but players agree that predators just don’t die like they used to. It’s unclear if animals got stronger or guns got weaker, but wolves are popping out of the ground like daisies and they’re definitely hard to deal with.
Here are the best survival games (opens in new tab) available on PC.