Overview
Simple Guide on the Basics of the Game as well as How to Survive as a Dinosaur ((WILL UPDATE AS REQUIRED!!))
Life… it begins.
Before a player can spawn on The Isle they must select a server. These range in variety of map, gamemode. and player population. Servers also vary in rules, with the name of the server being a good indication of modified rules.
Official Servers contain Anti-Cheat which is helpful to avoid hackers in what can be a rough game.
Various Community Servers exist including Developement Team for Feedback and Support
Development Servers exist with special confined maps with no environment to perfect mechanics such as offensive combat and environment movement. This is best to learn fighting and defense tactics.
Beginners may want to select a server with a lower population limit or a server with less players on it to be safer when learning The Isle. Encountering fewer players lowers chances of frequent dying.
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There are currently three gamemodes in The Isle; Survival, Progression, and Sandbox.
Players start as a juvenile (or hatchling if nesting*) of whichever herbivore or carnivore dinosaur variety chosen. The player must then survive by keeping their water and food gauges filled while they age up their dinosaur through adulthood, find a mate, invite offspring, and complete the circle of life.
There is no respawn once a dinosaur is selected until you are killed or die of natural causes.
Players start as the base herbivore or carnivore of the server selected. This gamemode utilizes a Progression Tree in which the player accumlates progression points by surviving which can then be used to upgrade to the next tier dinosaur in their chosen branch.
Carnivore Progression
Example: Velociraptor —> Austroraptor –> Utahraptor –> Allosaurus –> Tyrannosaurus
Example: Velociraptor —> Austroraptor –> Utahraptor –> Baryonyx –> Suchomimus –> Spinosaurus
Example: Velociraptor –> Herrerasaurus –> Dilopohsaurus–>Ceratosaurus–>Carnotaurus
Herbivore Progression
Example: Psittocosaurus –> Avaceratops –> Pachycephalosaurus –> Ankylosaurus
Example: Psittocosaurus –> Avaceratops –> Diabloceratops –> Triceratops/Stegosaurus
Example: Orodromeus –> Dryosaurus –> Maiasaura –> Shantungosaurus –> Camarasaurus
There is no respawn; once a dinosaur is selected until you are killed or die of natural causes.
Players start as any dinosaur they want, either fully grown or as any of the various stages of life depending on the herbivore or carnivore selected. This mode is best for players who desire less realism and more arcade style action.
This mode allows players to respawn as they desire; choosing any dinosaur they want
Prehistoric Environment
Environments on The Isle consist of official and community made maps. These maps typically consist of dense forrest, mountains, open plains, swamps, and modded features like desert or snow.
Thick Forrest; perfect hiding locations for ambushing prey, going afk, or escaping from predators.
Open Plains; great visibility for herbivore herds protecting their young, but easy to pick off weak links when hunting. Younger or wounded herbivores move slowly, lagging behind their group.
Cliffs and Mountains; present environmental dangers as dinosaurs can fall and injure themselves.
Water; the source of Life plays a huge role in The Isle with several swamps, lakes, watering holes, and caves which contain fresh water, along with the ocean surrounding the island on official maps.
Part of what keeps The Isle from becoming a static environment are the constant changes in weather, particularly thunderstorms and night causing the most challenges for players.
Day/Night Cycle
Official Maps on The Isle have slow enough day/night cycles that players can spend a while on each of the time slots; such as Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Night, each with their own visibility challenges.
Storms occur throughout The Isle with thunder and lightning as well as heavy rain that reduce visibility. Thunderstorms, Heavy Rain, or even Light Rain all impair a player’s ability to hear the footsteps of stalking dinosaurs on the hunt.
Night Vision
Both Herbivore and Carnivore Dinosaurs have Night Vision; a mode which allows players to see better at night in the way a dinosaur might have been able to. Toggling this feature greatly brightens the screen to see more clearly, but is blinding during the day.
The Circle of Life
Starting out as a dinosaur that is not fully grown is common on most servers. Typically dinosaurs start out as juveniles; one of the many stages of life of a dinosaur living on The Isle.
Over time, just by surviving on The Isle players will grow in size, with four major life stages. Growth happens automatically over time, with physical changes to the player’s appearence visible.
Players can track their growth through points that accumulate over time, and when the goals are met players may advance to the next life stage, or reach the peak size of their final life stage.
An alternative to spawning into The Isle as a juvenile dinosaur is to participate in the nesting system.
Gender Selection
Selecting a dinosaur also includes selecting the dinosaur’s gender which effects whether or not they have the ability to nest. Female dinosaurs surviving to adulthood can create and invite players to nests.
Players who accept an invitation to nest will start out as a hatchling of the nesting dinosaur’s species. This is advantageous to guarantee parents or skip species in Progression Gamemode.
Choosing Male/Female effects ability to nest, size, color and pattern. NOT damage/health stats.
Nesting
Adult female dinosaurs can create a nest which produces eggs to hatch other players. An egg incubates through resting on top of the nest. Incubation times vary based on species. Once an egg is ready, players can invite others to the nest.
Interacting with the nest, players will find it also can receive food in increments, which removes food from the player’s stats to fill, allowing slow-moving hatchlings to feed off the nest.
Nests have health and can be destroyed by other players. Nests should be destroyed after a player is finished, as two cannot be placed. Another nest can be made 2 minutes after destruction.
Due to the high food consumption, it is important to nest near a body of water with a food supply.
First Stage; young dinosaurs are very small, with many unable to even see above most grass.
Their small legs keep dinosaurs at younger stages from covering large distances of ground easily, usually staying near a fresh water source for much of their early life; protected by parents.
Hatchlings are defenseless, unable to migrate, and incapable of hunting, relying on parents or sheer luck for survival, as a bite from any predator will kill any hatchling.
Hatchlings digest food quickly and water quickly. These gauges must be refilled often.
Second Stage; most common to spawn in as: Juveniles of any species are still small, migrate very slowly, and are still defenseless, relying entirely on older adults of their species.
For Herbivores this usually involves finding adults of either the same or other friendly species to protect them as well as possibly show them the terrain to fresh water or more plants to consume.
For Carnivores (without parents) finding older adults can be beneficial or dangerous. Older Carnivores can choose to protect younger players, even hunting for them, or view them as easy pickings.
Scavanging
Therefore the relationship with carnivores may be entirely indirect, with ghost parents leaving the scraps of a rotting carcus; younger carinvores scavanging until they can fend for themselves.
Both Herbivore and Carnivore species deplete food and water gauges quickly when at younger stages.
Third Stage; some species of sub-adult dinosaurs have advantages even over their adult forms.
Sub-Adults can finally move faster, migrating at speeds similar to their full adult counterparts. Sub-adults are also physically big enough to threaten and kill smaller attacking predators.
Carnivores can now begin to go hunting, either alone or with other adults and sub-adults of thier group. Sub-adults bite damage to large dinosaurs can help adults hunt, and kills small or young dinosaurs.
Herbivores have a high enough defense that can damage predators, but weak enough to be vulnurable. Staying in a herd and only defending when personally necessasary is still advised.
Sub-adult apex predators (Ex: Tyrannosaurus or Giganotosaurus) ambush and run faster than adults.
Fourth Stage; All Dinosaur Stats, such as health and attack are at their full capactity.
Dinosaurs that survive until adulthood have now the highest stats for their species;
-Players will reach their full potenital adult size
-Final color and pattern for their species’ gender
-Health for the player’s dinosaur is the highest
-Attack actions such as bite do mamimum damage
-Defense actions like head-ram do maximum damage possible
-Food and Water consumption is at the slowest level
-Player movement will be the fastest possible
Mating
Adult players are tasked with surviving their time on The Isle with many choosing to continue the circle of life by nesting with a mate; choosing to invite offspring of their own protect and raise to survive.
With the confidence of adulthood, finding a suitable mate is easy; raising baby dinosaurs alone is not.
Extinction
The only alternative to reaching maturity and either struggling to survive or struggling to raise offspring to maturity, is death. Either because a player is out-smarted, weak, or has bad luck, once deceased there is no option but to start over, either in a nest or otherwise.
Survival; A Daily Struggle
Players have an overall health indicated by a red blood effect around the screen.
Overall Health
The Red Blood Effect around the screen gets more intense as a player’s health gets lower.
A healthy dinosaur has no blood effect around their screen at all.
Dinosaur Health is determined by life stage (age), physical size, and species selection.
Health is lowered when a player is damaged by another dinosaur’s attack, such as a bite.
Total Health is lowered periodically if a player lacks resources i.e. is starving or de-hydrated.
A player can be instantly killed if another dinosaur’s attack is greater than their total health.
(Such as a T-Rex to a Juvenile Carno or an Adult Triceratops Horn Ram to a Dilophosaurus)
Bleeding
If a player is wounded by a hostile dinosaur, especially certain carnivore bites, they begin to bleed. Blood is visible leaking out from the dinosaur, blood trails form on the ground, and a symbol appears under the gauges.
Hungry Carnivores can follow the trail of blood and track wounded dinosaurs attempting to flee.
Physical scars are visible on low health or wounded dinosaurs, regardless of how they were injured.
Broken Bones
It is possible for a player to break their leg during either combat or falling off a height during migration!
Broken legs will cause players to limp, crippling their movement, creating an opportunity for predators! Several predator bites are powerful enough to break bone, as are herbivore defenses.
Players can also toggle to fake being injured, causing a fake limp as if a leg were broken to lure in naive predators.
Broken Bones are obvious by the crippled movement speed, animation, and icon below the gauges.
Swimming
Some dinosaurs are better at traveling through water easier, such as crossing a large lake.
Dinosaurs of all different shapes and sizes have unique attributes that effect their ability to swim, with many super predators lacking in short, stubby arms while many herbivores gain in tremedous size.
The size of many herbivores and fish-eating spinosauridae keeps their heads above water to breathe.
Smaller dinosaurs, juveniles, and stubby armed predators like T-Rex swim poorly and slowly.
Dinosaurs have swimming stamina when under water; younger and smaller dinosaurs can drown easily trying to cross lakes or streams that older, larger dinosaurs can cross without complication.
Never overestimate swimming distance, many times it may to be too late before realizing the difficulty.
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The only way for a player to heal is gradually over time. Dinosaurs heal very slowly when active, with bleeding effects not ceasing while sprinting. Broken legs heal slowly if the player continues to move.
It is important to regroup with friendly dinos or otherwise make sure the coast is clear before healing.
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The only way to increase healing time, and conserve food & water, is by resting.
Health Regeneration is dramatically increased while food and water comsumption is decreased.
Resting is a state where a player sits down comfortable, immobilized until getting up.
Dinosaurs are vulnerable to predator attack while resting due to the time to return to an active state.
Conservation of these resources is vital to long term survival on The Isle. Suitable resource locations such as the arrival to a lake or near the carcus of a kill or edible plants are defended as terroritory.
Resting also increases the speed at which stamina, a key resource for survival, is regenerated.
Replacing Stamina at an increased rate is helpful when running/hiding or chasing prey.
Prey and Predator
Like the success to all life, water is the single most imporant resource in the The Isle A steady water source is crucial to rearing offspring to Sub-Adulthood and a common meeting ground for all dinosaurs.
Difficulty and Danger exist at every watering hole. Water is scarce in The Isle, and since all life congregates at water, predator hunting grounds always include watering holes.
Giant Lakes; allows for distance between dinosaur groups
Tiny Watering Holes; force predator and prey together
Hard-to-Reach Locations; present risk of environmental injury and falling to death.
Fireflys surround water sources at night, allow players to find them easier.
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A key factor of survival on The Isle is keeping the red hunger gauge filled which drains over time.
This gauge is replenished by eating blue and green plants found around The Isle.
Each plant contains a certain amount of food points which deplete as the plant is consumed.
The plant will physically get smaller until it disppears and the player can no longer eat the plant.
Migration
Since all the edible plants near a water source can be consumed, migrating around the map to different water sources is important to herbivore survival.
Herbivores are safest when traveling in larger groups, typically consisting of several families of various species coexisting within a migratory pattern. This helps them protect their young and scout the area to alert the herd in case of predator attack.
Defense
Unlike carnivores which rely on speed and ambush, weaving in-and-out and wounding prey, herbivores best survive by standing ground.
Large Herbivores have large health bars due to size or do high damage defensive moves.
Small Herbivores can defend themselves against small and juvenile predators, however larger predator encounters are best survived by running, either away from hostile or towards friendly dinosaurs.
Stamina is the key to running for survival, regular and alternative attacks do not drain stamina.
Herding Behavior dramatically increases survival for all herbivores species… as long as plants last.
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Carnivores fill this gauge by eating the flesh of deceased dinosaur players of any species.
Hunting
While any carnivore can get lucky and discover the remains of dead dinosaur, players do not often die for no reason. Survival for any length of time is tough, and survivng as a carnivore is even tougher.
Killing other players can be challenging, as older herbivore prey is well defended and rarely alone.
Stalking is the most important skill, tracking migration patterns great distances looking for opportunity and weakness among a group of herbivores or fellow carnivores.
Run to prey, take a bite, and break off the attack.
Chasing wounded animals is the best strategy for the combat system. Learning offensive and defensive actions is easily done on test servers where players focus on refining such things. Dinosaur combat strategies are easily practiced on these servers for both herbivore and carnivore alike. The combat system can be rough, so practice makes perfect.
A single T-Rex bite can crush bone, crippling the prey’s speed, while other preds have sharp teeth to cause massive bleeding effects. Smaller predators such as raptors can even pounce large dinosaurs, digging their claws into the side until stamina runs out.
Larger Carnivores rely on Stealth while hunting to remain undetected. Surprise is the most important advantage the much slower but powerful predators have.
Smaller Carnivores rely on their speed and social skills, hunting with high stamina to chase down prey over great distances in groups.
Stamina is very important in ambushing and chasing down prey
Many carnivores will kill decent size prey in one bite, but chasing down wounded prey is preferable to all out combat.
Scavaging
Juvenile and Smaller Size predators rely on what remains of the carcus of players killed eariler.
While it is possible for dinosaurs to die of nautral and accidental causes, most scavanger players are going to have to track larger predators, herbivores, or scout water sources for food.
Scavengers typically have to wait, sometimes a while, until threatening dinosaurs allow the smaller ones to feast on their kill, or otherwise leave the area.
While cannibalism of any deceased dinosaur is acceptable, same-species hunting (not fighting) is typically discouraged.
Different size dinosaurs have different food points when they die.
The remains of a dead dinosaur have different looks;
-Full deceased body
-Rotting Carcus
-Meat Scraps
The body/meat disappears entirely when food points run out.
Apex and Large Predators can only eat full bodies or a larger rotting carcus.
Smaller Predators and Young Carnivores can eat scraps, and anything bigger.
Rotting carcasses can be found easier by listening for the buzz of flies and looking for steam from heat
Life, uh… finds a way.
Despite the horrible land of death and decay that are most maps of The Isle, players have learned several strategies for survival, many of which involve tactics of the extinct creatures and behaviors that carry on to the modern animals of Earth today!
Herbivores
Plant-eating Dinosaurs tend to live in mixed groups of species, with say a small family of Triceratops, a large Parasaurolophus family, and a lone Maiasaura sharing a migratory pattern; traveling together.
Herbivores tend to be friendly towards other herbivores, and the occasional juvenile carnivore, assuming their is food lying around. It is easy to find a herd and join a group and travel around with fellow herbivores. Living in groups is key to survival for smaller herbivores.
Carnivores
Meat-eating Dinosaurs tend to live as lone-predators or small family units, such as two parents and very few offspring. Juvenile carnivores are high-maintance and large groups exhaust food supplies.
Carnivores are territorial and tend to defend their area against carnivores and herbivores of all size.
Predators guard their kills from scavangers, chasing away weaker dinosaurs from meat and water.
Same-species carnivores do not usually hunt each other, while violent terrority disputes are common.
Interacting with fellow dinosaurs, whether hostile or friendly, is crucial to survival on The Isle
Roars, Snarls, and other Sounds
Dinosaurs on The Isle have five main roars that allow them to communicate with other players;
Roar #1: Projection
Roar #2: Friendly
Roar #3: Aggressive
Roar #4: Help
Roar#5: Null
On most servers, only dinosaurs of the same species can speak (type in chat) with one another.
Everytime a message is sent in chat, the dinosaur in-game makes an audible roar to all other players.
Dinosaur Body Language
Aside from roars and other dinosaur vocalizations, how a dinosaur is moving and its other actions indicate the other player’s intentions, whether they be friendly or hostile.
Players who repeat softer sounding roars and allow you the freedom to partake in activites like eating/drinking/resting are being friendly. Violence or displays of violent behavior are pretty obvious.
Dinosaurs that are roaring while also physically taunting, such as snaping jaws, stopping feet, and waving sharp claws intend violence. Assuming no immediate attack, the other player is demanding you give them more room; i.e. back away from a corpse or water source, or otherwise leave the area.
Dealing with other dinosaurs can be both pleasant, meeting fun and friendly players, or terrible, with aggressive anti-social behavior, especially apex super predators that kill everything in sight.
Friendly Exchanges
Many The Isle players role-play dinosaurs as legitimately as possible, rarely fighting for fun.
Predators typically only go hunting when hungry, and can behave non-threatening. Large lakes and enough food supply for herbivores and carnivores allows all species to co-exist at times.
Most Players usually allow especially the young and hurt to eat/drink the same food/water and as long as all players in an area have had their fill of food, herbivores and carnivores can socialize peacefully.
There is always an underlying threat of instability between dinosaurs, regardless of species or diet.
Groups allow for long distance communication and defensive co-ordination between players. Nametags and pictures appear above group member dinosaurs, and group chat is available.
Dinosaurs of the same species who find each other can ask in local chat to group up, finding each other easier, as following nametags/pictures makes navigating the map to meet up more managable.
Hostile Encounters
All interactions between dinosaurs, same species or not, are not friendly. Death is always possible.
Dominance Disputes often occur between both carnivores and herbivores, inter-species, and even within families. Fighting over a carcass is common among meat-eaters, with older and bigger adults allowing younger dinos to eat last or not at all.
Territory Fighting over water sources is also common, with bigger carnivores chasing little carnivores away from water, or herds of herbivores denying an apex predator the opportunity to drink.
You can practice fighting with different dinosaurs on the test level servers!
The developers of The Isle have stated that future updates to the game will decrease survivability.
As players in the community discover strategies to survive, The Isle will be updated to make those strategies fail or not work as well. This is part of the ever-changing landscape designed for extinction.
New dinosaurs, non-dinosaur species, non-playable characters, and other updates discussed later.
The Future of The Isle
As a game in the Alpha Stage, future updates could add more content, or drastically alter the game.
Such changes could include new maps, dinosaurs, humans, gamemodes or altered rules, such as new progression trees. Some features of The Isle have been removed from the game for improvement.
It is quite certain that more variety of dinosaurs will be added to the game, while these releases may be few and far between, as The Isle currently has a large roster of diverse dinosaurs to work with.
Pteranodon is rumored to be upcoming, likely in a tree of several aviary species.
Quetzalcoatlus
This flying pterosaur was once playable in The Isle.
It has since be removed to be worked on.
It is assumed Quetzalcoatlus will be re-added to the game when playing as one is balanced with other dinosaurs, challenging to survive as, and when mechanics function as glitch free as possible.
The size of a fighter jet, flying around as a Quetz is quite enjoyable.
List of Confirmed Work-in-Progress Dinosaurs:
Brachiosaurus (possibly scrapped for Puertasaurus)
Brontosaurus (possibly scrapped for Camarasaurus)
Carcharodontosaurus (skin for Giganotosaurus)
Compsognathus
Corythosaurus
Diplodocus
Kentrosaurus
Magnatyrannus (more deadly evolved Tyrannosaur)
Monolophosaurus
Pachyrhinosaurus
Plateosaurus
Protoceratops
Rugops (favored over Majungasaurus)
Styracosaurus
It is important to note that while models exist, many of these dinosaurs are similar to other made alonside and already included, and some models may be scrapped in favor of current species
NPCs
It is stated that non-playable characters will be in the game like small mammals, early dinosaurs, and fish. There is much speculation about the different types of wildlife that could potentially be included.
However; these NPCs will also include threatening prehistoric life such as Titanoboa, a giant snake that waits for its prey.
Deinosuchus, a large crocodile, is confirmed playable in some modes and AI in others.
Various water and land dwelling non-playable prehistoric life is expected to be added as food and a minor threat, with endless animals possible for future game development.
It is stated some of these creatures may become playable in the future.
Skin Selection
Currently unavailable, players in The Isle were once able to select a skin color/pattern for their dinosaur alongside gender. It is assumed these options will return with an even wider selection.
Some “Skins” may actually be alternative dinosaurs, with the same stats as the base dinosaur.
Scent
This ability for carnivores allows prey to be tracked via some sort of colored trail. While not in the current build, it is assumed this ability, once perfected, shall be reintroduced into The Isle
Developers of The Isle intend to introduce humans into game, divided into four factions who also fight for survival, hunting dinosaurs, escaping predators… and worse of all; fighting one another to live.
It is currently unknown but assumed humans survive by hunting, killing, and eating dinosaurs.
Test servers show a fireplace being available for construction in some way, so meat can be cooked.
Humans are divided into two large factions, each with two subsets to select from
Current test servers only allow first-person camera when playing as humans.
Many players believe adding humans to be a mistake, but with a variety of servers, players can choose to play with no humans allowed. I personally think hunting large herbivores and even small carnivores could be difficult, and avoiding serious predators should be fun.
Can you make a bond between beast and man?
Mercenaries
The first of the human options are the highly armed, highly adept, modern day Mercenaries.
They carry weapons such as Assault Rifles, maybe other guns and possibly even light explosives.
Battle-tested, trained in the art of war, and willing to fight to the death, can these soldiers of fortune bring enough gun to survive The Isle?
Will technology prove once again to make modern day humans the dominant species in the world?
or like most players… will they be dinosaur food?
Survivors
Nothing is currently known about the Survivor faction, but it is assumed they do not carry the same types of weapons as mercenaries, perhaps crafting improvised weapons from scavaging technology.
Tribal
Another human option to select are the native tribespeople living on The Isle within a lost world.
Isolated from other humans, tribal peoples living in setllements are strong, having hunted dinosaur for ages, and adept with whatever primitive weapons available; possibly spears or bow and arrow.
Developers state that tribal people can beat dinos into submission, with a club weapon, and ride them
Cannibals
The last of the “human” options are cannibals, mutated** humanoid creatures more beast than man.
At 9-11 ft. tall, cannibals are powerful, able to kill most high tier dinosaurs very easily.
Cannibals are also the fastest creatures, with the ability to outrun any dinosaur choice.
**See “mutations” section below to learn about genetic mutation strains.
The Isle is planned to include several super predators unlocked by surviving long enough as an apex.
Mutated players have increased size, health and speed, armored skin, and require constant food.
Hyperendocrin Strain
This strain of genetic mutation is an evolved form of apex dinosaur.
The current Hyperendocrin strains effect five dinosaurs:
Tyrannosaurus Rex, Spinosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Utahraptor, and Carnotaurus
Hyperendocrin dinosaurs are bigger, have visible armor and spikes, and other noticeable features.
Their constant hunger makes them dangerous and should not be trusted by any player, they will turn!
Neurotenic Spinosaurus (not above) has a skeletal like appearance, with special abilities such as communication with all other specices, or a mental power that causes other players to go blind.
Hyperendocrin Colossus is a humanoid-reptilian genetic monster larger than almost if not all other creatures. It is not known whether this creature will be playable.
Tissoplastic Reaper is a humanoid mutated bat that live in caves, that has increased size and strength. It is unsure how players will acquire this creature to play as.
Neurotenic Mastermind is an humanoid alien-like evolution of the cannibals. Creepy in its pale, faceless form; its deadly speed and sharp claws make for a killing machine.
Update – Change Log
This is a list of major updates and/or changes made to The Isle since the creation of this guide.
Note: Every minor change, alteration, or addition to The Isle will NOT be posted, as particular details such as individual bite damage stats, etc. are subject to constant refinement and balancing.
Also not every individual addition to the game will be mentioned such as a particular new playable dinosaur, AI creature, dino stat changes, skin colors, animations, or other minute changes.
The Isle has reintroduced skin selection not only allowing players to choose a pre-made skin pattern, but can choose the individual colors from any dinosaur’s palettes to create new unique skin designs.
Note: Keep Camouflage, the Day/Night cycle, and visibility in mind when selecting a skin!
Scent has been re-added into The Isle as an ability for both carnivores and herbivores.
The smell ability [Default “Q”] allows players to detect a variety of items:
- The Direction of Travel through a temporary HUD Compass
- Nearby Water Sources highlighted in a shimmering blue
- Nearby Food Sources highlighted in red or green (depending on diet)
- Tracking Players through colored trails that lead to nearby players
Note: It is not possible to use scent to find food, water, or other dinosaurs when it is raining!
The Isle has added NPC dinosaurs controlled by AI as a food source and threat to small herbivores.
Only the smallest dinosaurs like Psittacosaurus and Velociraptor have been added as AI.
Players can listen for the sounds the various AI creatures make in order to find them.
Note: Players refer to the AI by slang like “oreo” for the Orodromeus or “taco” for the Psittacosaurus
The Isle has introduced the ability to burrow for small herbivores like Dyrosaurus and Psittacosaurus.
Burrowing [Default “RMB”] allows players to dig a tiny cave to hide from predators or go AFK in.
Players can hide in another player’s burrow, however only one burrow per player can be built a time.
Cannot burrow as a hatchling or with a broken leg, but can still enter another player’s burrow.
Some Juvenile carnivores like the Utahraptor can Invade a burrow to attack players inside of it.
Note: Being inside a burrow when it is destroyed will result in instant death.
EVRIMA
The Isle is being reworked into what is currently called EVRIMA.
EVRIMA is a complete recoding of The Isle following a set of drama and conflict coming out of The Isle’s development team.
Brief Story
The Isle creator and spokesman Dondi has stated publicly that The Isle has had several major issues in the recent past. Internal fighting with The Isle development resulted in their lead programmer exiting the company under negative circumstance.
When the lead programmer left the team, he took all of the computer code with him. This has left The Isle development team unable to work with the current build of the game to make any changes or add any updates such as gameplay mechanics or new playable or NPC dinosaurs.
Under these circumstances, The Isle development team has decided to recode the entire game from the ground up in order to make the types of updates and changes that they have previously exhibited to the public still possible in the future. This includes NPC or ambient creatures such as fish within the rivers and lakes, playable prehistoric creatures such as sarcosuchus and pterosaurs, and the new gameplay mechanics they were already adding to the previous build of The Isle.
Drama
The ex-Isle programmer has used the code from The Isle to create a new dinosaur survival game that has alpha build access as both a PC game and mobile game, Path of Titans.
There is in-fighting within the dinosaur gaming community around The Isle vs. Path of Titans, and whether fans should support one or the other, or should be allowed to support both.
What does all of this mean for The Isle?
As of right now, The Isle is still available for sale on Steam and is still able to be played in its current version. The EVRIMA beta build is now available on the beta branch of The Isle, found under the properties tab of the game options.
Included in EVRIMA is a new map to explore and the beta has announced upcoming updates that include items never added to the original version of The Isle.
While the EVRIMA project has had Isle fans excited and hopeful for the future, and is finally available in beta for the public to try, the process of creating new code and rolling out updates has been extremely slow. This has left many fans disappointed with the slow development of EVRIMA, and players are unhappy with the bugs, glitches, and other performance issues that the beta build of EVRIMA has in its current state.
EVRIMA’s Future
There are currently only three playable dinosaurs: Utahraptor, Dryosaurus, and Tenontosaurus.
It is important to note that while EVRIMA is a recoding of The Isle, the amount of work and time that the development process takes is akin to the creation of an entirely new game. The development team was unaware of how much work and time such a task would require.
While the process has been really slow, the developers have been open and communicative about what is going on behind the scenes and what they expect to happen. It is important to remain patient and open-minded, and respect the overwhelming task that The Isle creators have decided to undertake.
The only way for The Isle to even receive any updates in the future and remain a workable game is for the developers to make their own code and reclaim their game. Fans of The Isle must remain patient and understanding in order for the game to reach its former glory, and then finally expand into something new and even greater.