After roughly 3 months of progression, I finally have completed Abberation. Now, I feel I can safely review this DLC with the experience from start to finish.

Abberation is hard, there is no sugarcoating that. It challenges you in ways the previous arks have not done. Where The Island and Scorched Earth were easy to navigate once you obtained your first flyer, Abberation steals that luxery away from you by having no flyers and not allowing for them. This imposes a limitation on how quickly you progress, and what was once just a passing thought in any survivors mind becomes a luxery: Travel.

I enjoy Abberation because of this though. It forces you to improvise where otherwise you could simply fly right over it. Instead of flying, you'll have to navigate by the ground or climb up sheer cliff walls with flimsy climbing picks for a better vantage points. It makes it harder to get around, but it also makes you appreciate the world around you, and also makes you even more grateful once you obtain better forms of transportation.

The Abberant ARK encourages you to go deeper. The farther down you go, the more valuable the resources and animals you discover become. However, going deeper means obtaining better forms of transportation, and also light pets to keep The Nameless away. This basically means certain areas of the map are essentially 'locked' until you can better traverse them, else you'll be easy pickings.

The Lore of Abberation is well worth it if you invest the time in discovering the Explorer notes scattered around the map. They were not lying when they said Abberation is the place you'd unlock the 'secrets' of the ARKs.

Abberation does have its downsides though. Constant earthquakes can get very annoying to some people, and having to always use Charge Light in certain areas can be abit annoying if your not used to it. Climbing Picks also sometimes glitch out for me, and there can be a long period when you first start where your essentially locked to one area due to lack of transportation. Also, the Portal Room as the 'easiest' spawn area is a complete joke. Trust me, I found out after a Basilisks killed me there.

Overall, I recommend Abberation for anyone who is looking for a challenging time in ARK, and to anyone who really likes ruins of buildings and underground biomes like I do.