Ark: The Animated Series is a 2024 Animesque adult Animated Adaptation of ARK: Survival Evolved, released on Paramount+. Written by Marguerite Bennett, it boasts an All-Star Cast for the voice acting, including Madeleine Madden, Gerard Butler, David Tennant, Michelle Yeoh, Jeffrey Wright, Elliot Page, Karl Urban, Russell Crowe, and Vin Diesel, the latter two whom also serve as executive producers.
Contemporary professor of archeology Helena Walker wakes up on a mysterious tropical island, populated by extinct animals and humans from many eras of history. She must survive the savage world and the only thing more dangerous than primeval beasts: human politics.
'Examples of tropes not present in the game:
- Adaptational Diversity: Understated. Many characters' ethnicities are not mentioned in the original explorer notes, and they are brown in the series.
- Adaptational Sexuality: Helena's sexuality isn't mentioned in the game, but in the series, she had a wife.
- Adaptational Villainy: Rockwell is a conniving snake in both continuities. But in the game, he initially befriends Helena over their mutual love of science, while in the series, they get off on the wrong foot very quickly.
- In the game lore, the only tamed Giganotosaurus belonged to Mei Yin and proved instrumental in her battle against the Megapithecus and confrontation with Nerva's army. In the series, instead it is Nerva whom is its master.
- Adventurer Archaeologist: Helena, though she is aboriginal Australian, and despite the primitive setting, the idea of a "native tribe" doesn't make sense on the island.
- Anachronism Stew: Naturally, given the setting. While Nerva continues to dress like a Roman general, his Faceless Mooks wear the plate mail from the games.
- Androcles' Lion: How Helena befriends her Parasaur, Scary.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: The series naturally retains the inaccuracies made by the game, but also has a few additional ones which stand out.
- A Leedsichthys manages to kill a megalodon, even causing it to bleed with a bite. Leedsichthys was a filter-feeding fish with thousands of tiny teeth used for sifting through the water for plankton not unlike a whale shark.
- The Tyrannosaurus in the series have three-fingered hands, rather than the two-fingered hands both their real and game counterparts had.
- Been There, Shaped History: Mei Yin was a (forgotten) leader during the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Nerva's Rex is red, while the Alliances' are green.
- Compressed Adaptation: The pacing is very fast compared to the story told in Helena Walker and Edmund Rockwell's notes from the game. (Compare the runtime of the fanmade machinima of said notes to the show itself.)
- Contrived Coincidence: Why does Bob just so happen to have clothes for Helen in her size? They could have easily shown him or Helena crafting it during a survival Training Montage or even a campfire scene.
- Curse Cut Short: A variation: Bob cannot believe that Helena is a professor, because she's a wo—
- Death World: Downplayed compared to the game. Arrows actually hurt the giant beasts, the Big Creepy-Crawlies are of a more manageable size, and human bands don't have to fight creatures constantly to go anywhere.
- The Dreaded: Mei Yin.Imperial general: My own soldiers speak of you in whispers — the language of fear.
- Dying Momentof Awesome:
- John manages to kill Nerva's Giganotosaurus using some conveniently-placed Exploding Barrels.
- Mei Yin falls into a trap but still manages to kill the general who set it through Heroic Willpower.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Downplayed. Nerva placed former gladiatrix Octavia in charge of one of his mining outposts and one of his slaving raiders (the first Helena encounters) is a woman.
- Go Out with a Smile: John, knowing that Mei Yin and Helena are safe.
- Foil: Mei Yin and Nerva both rebelled against corrupt and decadent empires. But Mei Yin fought for the rights of peasants, while Nerva continues to conquer and enslave.
- Honor Thy Brother: A key part of Mei Yin's backstory is her choice to attack the palace instead of rescuing her brother to the surprise of the imperial general.
- Island of Mystery: Dinosaurs, reincarnation from across time, and magic/high-tech artifacts.
- Get Back to the Future: Nerva believes that the legendary artifacts of the Ark will let him return to Rome to finish his rebellion — with an unstoppable army of dinosaurs!
- Guile Hero: How Helena gets the better of so many bloodthirsty warlords and raiders.
- Made a Slave: In this new world, Nerva continues doing Roman things.
- Naginatas Are Feminine: Downplayed. Mei Yin's weapon of choice on the island is a polearm, but in her past life, many male fighters used the same, so it's more about time period (and the fact that they fight dinosaurs) than gender.
- Names to Run Away From: The Beast Queen.
- Non-Action Guy: Edmund Rockwell, gentleman scholar, and Henry, engineer. Which, in this setting, means they occasionally pick up crossbows and get their asses kicked.
- Plot Armor: Mei Yin is plausibly an even match for Nerva, even with the size difference, as they have both been fighting their entire lives. Helena, on the other hand, is a squishy modern woman with almost zero training in sword fighting, and so should have been killed even more quickly than the Red Shirts. Instead, she holds her own against him for a while and survives.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Bob helps Helen survive her first day on the island, but being from the 1940s, is incredulous that she could be a professor.
- Survival Mantra:Helena: "I'm here. You're here."
- Training Montage: Mei Yin trains Helen in medieval martial arts. They face Nerva and Helen doesn't die, so it was a very effective montage!
- Translator Microbes: Averted, unlike in the game's backstory. Helena speaks Latin well and Chinese poorly, but it turns out English is the Lingua Franca of the island.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Helena has an arc about the necessity of killing.
- Worthy Opponent: How Nerva sees Mei Yin (a feeling she does not reciprocate). To the point where he is angered when Rockwell cuts their duel short with a well-aimed tranquilizer dart.
