The Isle

Bugs are the complaint raised most often: 14% of reviews mention bugs, glitches, crashes, getting stuck in terrain, or wiped dinosaurs. The problems they list include crashes during play or at launch, getting stuck in rocks or terrain where /unstuck does not help, food or water actions that stop working, invisible walls, and fall damage on small slopes. A crash leaves your body in the world, so players report losing grown dinosaurs to crashes. One fan joked that "the strongest predator in the game isn't an apex... it's the disconnected/crash log screen."

Lost saves form their own wave. Players report official servers deleting dinosaurs on resets or after a correct safe logout; "Official servers reset your dino EVERY day," one reviewer wrote, before adding later that the resets were fixed. These reports peaked in June 2026, when 3.3% of that month's reviews described them, against under 1% in every other month from April on. Players also complain that there was no word on the problem while it was happening.

About 8% of reviews raise frame rate, optimisation, stutter, ping, desync or rubberbanding. Owners of mid-range PCs report 10 to 30 FPS, and owners of high-end ones report big drops on busy servers: "Even with a solid setup, hitting 100 FPS on a populated server is difficult, even on the lowest settings." Players describe high ping and rubberbanding during fights that cost them a dinosaur. These complaints rose in August 2026 after a patch. One player's review update from early that month read: "Another failed update, ping skyrockets, servers disappear from the list, random frame drops occurring all over the map." A minority with strong hardware say it runs fine and share tips such as enabling DLSS.

About 5% of reviews describe the setup and learning curve. The game installs the outdated Legacy version by default, and buyers must find the Evrima branch in Steam's beta settings: "When you download this game, the version you have is NOT the version you should be playing." Several reviewers landed in Legacy and found only empty or foreign-language servers before learning this, and some ran past the refund window while troubleshooting. Once in, there is no tutorial, no key to the symbols, and no in-game map, so players rely on YouTube guides and community map websites. "Almost everything you actually need to know is taught by the community, not by the game itself." A minority enjoy the lack of hand-holding ("No minimap, no constant hand-holding").

Mostly long-time players raise this. Their most specific complaint is pinning, where a larger or pouncing dinosaur holds you down until you die: "Getting grabbed with zero counterplay feels less like a mechanic and more like a personal attack." Players name particular species they find overpowered (Allosaurus pounces and T. rex are named in several reviews) and describe hits that do not register: "Combat is inconsistent, hits don't register properly, and fights often feel unfair." Some also complain that juveniles can cripple near-adult dinosaurs.

4.5% of reviews mention hackers or cheaters. They describe speed hacks, one-hit kills, and radar or ESP tools that track them through dense forest, often on official servers: "There is more than likely 10 or more hackers in every full official server." The complaint grows when reports seem to go nowhere. One reviewer describes losing a 68% grown T. rex to what looked like a hacker, reporting it, and then finding that "I was the one who ended up banned from the server." A few Linux and cloud-streaming players report that the anti-cheat keeps them out of the current version, while others say it does not stop cheaters.

4% of reviews raise starvation or missing AI animals. Carnivores in particular report wandering for hours without finding prey: "dying to starvation as there is no AI prey or players to be found anywhere." Specific complaints include fish not spawning, community servers that turn off or limit AI to fit more players, and food spawning less on low-population servers. One reviewer's later update says land food on official servers has improved a lot while fish are still scarce, and others point to unofficial servers for more AI food, which suggests the problem varies with server and settings.

Reviewers note that the game has been in Early Access since 2015, mostly to explain their patience running out: "this game has been so slow in development I have grown into an adult." The specific complaints are that new dinosaurs arrive while old bugs stay, that patches add new problems, and that quality-of-life requests go unanswered for years. Some newer players disagree and point to regular updates, one noting that "it has updated twice since I started playing" over two to three months.

Reviewers say the map is large for the official player cap, so some walk for long stretches without meeting anyone: "given that there are 100 people to a server you'd be surprised how many people you DON'T run into." The most popular community servers, meanwhile, can be full with no queue, so getting in means clicking join until a slot opens. Friends often spawn far apart and struggle to meet up without a map.

A smaller group says night lasts too long and is too dark even for nocturnal species, with storms making it worse. One review shouts it: "THE NIGHT IS TOO GODDAMN DARK AND TOO LONG". Some players accept it as part of the realism.

Some players object to a skin system change that limited colour choices: "Recent update ruined the custom skin maker, all of the colors are super limited now". One points out that some unofficial servers offer wider palettes.