Snail Games’ PixARK launched with a lot of mixed reactions, mostly due to performance, bugs, and Snail Games trying to get their bearings on the playability aspects. For gamers interested in some of the mechanics and getting off to a strong start, there’s a beginner walkthrough taming guide to help you with how to tame, harvest resources, and takedown big dinosaurs quickly in PixARK.

YouTuber Fresonis has a 13-minute guide to help get you moving in the right direction right from the get-go. You can check it out below.

If you plan on playing single-player in the offline mode you can set up the resources, map layout, and a few other options in case you don’t want to be bothered by other players.

Fresonis suggests going into creative mode and starting a procedurally generated map. Once you’re loaded in, open up your map and you’ll want to check to ensure that all of the biomes are there, including:

• Doom Lands
• Dark Forest
• Frozen Land
• Golden Realm
• Magic Forest
• Desert
• Swamp
• Mountain Forest
• Grassland
• Novice Grassland
• Deep Ocean

Why is it important to check the map for these biome locations? Because the map procedurally generates but it does not include each of the biomes, it means that you won’t be able to acquire certain resources and you won’t be able to tame certain animals from those biomes.

So go into the Local Mode and do the Creative Mode to procedurally generate a map until you find the map that contains all the biomes that you want. From here, enter into the Local Mode and then do the Single-Player Mode to start playing right proper.

Once your parachute into the map, grab some berries, punch down some trees to collect wood, and then open your inventory and make a wooden pickaxe.

You’ll also need to make a stick if you want to tame low-level dinosaurs. Use the stick to beat some sense into them to knock them unconscious. While they’re unconscious you’ll need to acquire meat and place it in the dinosaur’s inventory.

To do this, press ‘E’ on the keyboard to open the inventory and then place the meat (or berries, or food) inside the inventory of the dinosaur. This will begin the taming process.

A meter will show how long the dinosaur will stay unconscious, while a second meter will show how long it will take until the dinosaur is tamed.

There are multiple ways to knockout dinosaurs, including the stun stick, which is a default engram that you start with; the slingshot, which can be acquired after you reach level 10; and at level 15 you can unlock the engram for the bow.

Fresonis does an in-depth guide on which weapons to use and how to best knockout dinosaurs in PixARK.

At level 35, an engram is unlocked for the crossbow, and at level 57 you can unlock the longneck rifle.

To craft the rifle, you will need to first have the pistol engram.

If you want to knockout dinos with the crossbow or bow and arrow, you’ll first need to unlock the engram for the stone arrow, and then you’ll need to unlock the engram for the sleepy arrow at level 15.

You can also unlock the sleepy potion along with the sleepy arrow. You use the sleepy potions after a dinosaur has been knocked out, and add them to the dino’s inventory to keep them knocked out and subdued. This makes it easy to subdue and tame dinosaurs.

Sleepy darts can be unlocked at level 60 while magic arrows are only useful against magical creatures.

Additionally, you’ll need to collect a bunch of Narcoberry ingredients to make sleepy arrows. Do so you’ll need to unlock the mortar and pestle engram at level 10. Place down the mortar and pestle, and you’ll need narco berry and carrion to create sleepy potions.

If you go to the magic forest you can acquire magic plants to acquire ingredients for magic arrows.

One of the things that he explains in the video is that for raptors, lure them into small holes about four blocks deep. Once the raptor is in the hole, light it up with sleepy arrows.

As showcased in the video, you will need a lot of tranquilizer darts or sleepy arrows for a T-Rex. Now before attacking the T-Rex, you need to build up a trap blockade just like he depicts in the video above, lure the T-Rex into the trap and then shoot it from safety. Once the T-Rex is knocked out, you need to feed it to tame it.

Now if you’re a really low level, you can use a slingshot and a dirt block trap to knockout dinosaurs.

Now if you need meat for your pet, you’ll want to kill other dinosaurs, harvest the meat with a pickaxe and cook the meat over the cooker and feed the cooked meat to your tamed dinosaur to keep them fed.

You can also eat the cooked meat or some of the berries to also replenish your character’s health and food intake as well.

PixARK is currently available right now in Early Access over on the Steam store for $24.99.