Ok, I've played Dark and Light- enough to throw out a recommendation for it. The name of the game is survive, gather, arm, tame, and build. Some have described this as ARK with NPC vendors and merchants, including animals which can be tamed and like ARK, have gathering specialties. The first biome is a pleasant forest/alpine area with 3 faction towns to start in, human, dwarf, and elf. If the size of the map shown on the launch screen comes to fruition, it promises to be a very large world.
The graphics look very similar to ARK. It's new, but imo has the weakest building as far as flexibility and choices. The taming mechanic is a variation of the ARK method, knock them out, then feed them so they will become your buddy, except in DNL you are shooting them with arrows with ropes that you attach to the ground and the animal gets fatigued to a point where it collapses from fatigue. Then you feed it until it's your buddy.
There are a variety of fantasy and prehistoric creatures, like goblins, ents, unicorns, and... dinosaurs. As of this writing no lore or quests, although you will be guided on how to progress, if you want to call those quests.
Conclusion- Dark and Light is a worthy game. All of the survival sandbox games I'm familiar with (ARK: Survival Evolved, Conan Exiles, and this) are variations on the same theme sandbox survival. There are no formalized questing structures like a typical MMORPG, no story, and minimal lore if any. The structure is freedom to explore, build, raise skills and stats, and tame animals or slaves that assist in this endeavor. All 3 have both PVP and PVE settings. I've observed that exploration is fun, but it only takes me so far. The attraction of the game is after I've seen the sights, what do I do now?
All titles are repetitive and grindy. Just how many hours do you want to spend chopping trees and rocks? A lot depends on your tolerance for such activity. If you have a low tolerance for grind, but enjoy building or taming/enslaving a godsend is the ability to play these games in a solo/private server creative mode by using the game's console to give you what ever you want, and take on whatever challenges that you enjoy. For example, in Conan, I build creatively, but I engage in combat and capturing slaves like the game intended.
For Dark and Light, what's best about it there are animals to fight and tame, and NPC townfolk that you can interact with, although at this point that interaction is just selling and buying items with a vendor. Unfortunately there is no Mac version. If you want to play on your Mac, either play this via bootcamp, or you can try ARK:Survival Evolved which has a Mac version and there is also an ARK thread in this forum.