Community Crunch 481: Fear Ascended Details, Community Creature Vote, and more!

It’s that time of year again, when shadows stretch long, the air turns crisp, and strange sights stir across the ARK. The spooky season draws near, heralding the return of Fear Ascended, and while Survivors prepare for the eerie nights ahead, the next rounds of community creature votes are now underway.

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Darkness creeps once more across the ARK...

Fear Ascended returns from October 29th to November 12th, bringing with it a spine-tingling celebration packed with new skins, eerie creatures, and haunting surprises to discover.

We’ve turned up the saturation for Fear Ascended—more colors, more variety, and more chances to spot rare shades bleeding through to the wild. Expect your world to be brighter, bolder, and packed with some of the community's favorite hues!

Stay close to the fire, Survivors... you never know what’s lurking in the dark.

• 10/29/2025 to 11/12/2025

• PVP/PVE: 2x Harvesting, Taming, and Experience, and Breeding
• Small Tribes: 4.5x Harvesting, Taming, and Experience + 4x Breeding
• ARKpocalypse: 5x Harvesting, Taming and Experience, and Breeding

• Ghost Cat *new*
• Ghost Gigantoraptor *new*
• Ghost Ankylosaurus *new*
• Ghost Ceratosaurus *new*
• Ghost Angler *new*
• Ghost Veilwyn *new*
• Ghost Drakeling *new*
• Ghost Yi Ling *new*
• Ghost Argentavis *new*
• Ghost Spinosaurus *new*
• Ghost Megalodon *new*
• Ghost Otter *new*
• Ghost Deinonychus *new*
• Ghost Snow Owl *new*
• Dodo Wyvern
• DodoRex
• Ghost Direwolf
• Ghost Basilisk
• Ghost Bulbdog
• Ghost Mantis
• Ghost Rex
• Ghost Surface Reaper King
• Skeletal Bronto
• Skeletal Carnotaurus
• Skeletal Giganotosaurus
• Skeletal Jerboa
• Skeletal Quetzal
• Skeletal Raptor
• Skeletal Rex
• Skeletal Stego
• Skeletal Trike
• Skeletal Wyvern
• Zombie Fire Wyvern
• Zombie Lightning Wyvern
• Zombie Poison Wyvern
• Zomdodo
  • All creatures will spawn on their native map.

• ClubARK has received a spooky makeover
• ClubARK “Fear Wave” Mini-game

• Ghost Cat Costume *new*
• Ghost Gigantoraptor Costume *new*
• Ghost Ankylosaurus Costume *new*
• Ghost Ceratosaurus Costume *new*
• Ghost Angler Costume *new*
• Ghost Veilwyn Costume *new*
• Ghost Drakeling Costume *new*
• Ghost Yi Ling Costume *new*
• Ghost Argentavis Costume *new*
• Ghost Spinosaurus Costume *new*
• Ghost Megalodon Costume *new*
• Ghost Otter Costume *new*
• Ghost Deinonychus Costume *new*
• Ghost Snow Owl Costume *new*
• Ghost Basilisk Costume
• Ghost Bulbdog Costume
• Ghost Direwolf Costume
• Ghost Mantis Costume
• Ghost Reaper Costume
• Ghost Rex Costume
• Dino Witch Hat
• Scary Dino Pumpkin Helmet Skin
• Skeletal Giga Costume
• Skeletal Quetz Costume
• Skeletal Raptor Costume
• Skeletal Rex Costume
• Skeletal Stego Costume
• Skeletal Trike Costume
• Skeletal Wyvern Costume

• Weapon
  • Cleaver (Sword)
  • Crowbar (Pick)

• Armor
  • Araneo Swim Short Skin *new*
  • Araneo Swim Bottom Skin *new*
  • Reaper Swim Short Skin *new*
  • Reaper Swim Bottom Skin *new*
  • Jack-O-Lantern Swim Short Skin *new*
  • Jack-O-Lantern Swim Bottom Skin *new*
  • Vampire Dodo Swim Short Skin *new*
  • Vampire Dodo Swim Bottom Skin *new*
  • Araneo Swim Top Skin
  • Onyc Swim Short Skin *new*
  • Onyc Swim Bottom Skin *new*
  • Basilisk Ghost Costume
  • Bulbdog Ghost Costume
  • Clown Mask Skin
  • Dino Witch Hat Skin
  • Direwolf Ghost Costume
  • DodoRex Mask Skin
  • DodoWyvern Mask Skin
  • Headless Costume Skin
  • Hockey Mask Skin
  • Jack-O-Lantern-Print Shirt Skin
  • Jack-O-Lantern Swim Top Skin
  • Mantis Ghost Costume
  • Onyc Swim Top Skin
  • Reaper Ghost Costume
  • Reaper-Print Shirt Skin
  • Reaper Swim Top Skin
  • Rex Ghost Costume
  • Scary Pumpkin Helmet Skin
  • Skeleton Costume
  • Skele-Print Shirt Skin
  • Strawman Costume
  • Snow Owl Ghost Costume
  • Tentacle-Print Shirt Skin
  • Vampire Eyes Skin
  • Vampire Dodo Swim Top Skin
  • Werewolf Mask Skin
  • Witch Hat Skin
  • ZombDodo-Print Shirt Skin
  • Zombie Wyvern-Print Shirt Skin
  • Werewolf Costume
  • Arrow-Head Hat
  • Sword-Head Hat

• Horror Species X
• Festive Dino Candy (Dino Candy Corn)
• Pumpkin
• Scarecrow
• Stolen Headstone

• Chibi-The Witching Owl *new*
• Chibi-Anglerfish
• Chibi-Araneo
• Chibi-Spooky Bulbdog
• Chibi-Vulture
• Chibi-Skeletal Brontosaurus
• Chibi-Skeletal Carno
• Chibi-Skeletal Giganotosaurus
• Chibi-Skeletal Jerboa
• Chibi-Skeletal Quetzal
• Chibi-Skeletal Raptor
• Chibi-Skeletal Rex
• Chibi-Skeletal Stego
• Chibi-Skeletal Trike
• Chibi-Skeletal Wyvern
• Chibi-Ghost Basilisk
• Chibi-Ghost Direwolf
• Chibi-Ghost Mantis
• Chibi-Ghost Rex

• Trick or Treat *new*
• Howl
• Sniff
• Evil
• Panic
• Scare

• ID69 DarkViolet
• ID83 LemonLime
• ID80 MidnightBlue
• ID1 Red
• ID75 Orange
• ID90 MediumLavender
• ID89 DarkLavender
• ID82 Light Grey
• ID31 Dino Dark Purple
• ID79 ActualBlack
• ID3 Green
• ID86 PineGreen
• ID14 Black
• ID49 WyvernPurple0

• From the Main Menu, select the mod tab.
• Search for Fear Ascended in the ARK Mod list and Install it. Mod ID: 877752
• After it's installed, go back to your game setup screen and select 'Mod Settings'
• You will see Fear Ascended and any other mods you've downloaded in 'Available Mods'
• Select Fear Ascended and activate it.

• If you would like to enable Fear Ascended on your private servers, please add the mod ID to your server command-line launch arguments (-mods=877752). No other changes should be necessary to activate the event.

Get ready! On Wednesday, October 29th, ClubARK will be decorated with a spooky theme, and we have hidden 10 golden Jack-O-Lanterns! Each Jack-O-Lantern is marked with a number from 1 to 10 — and it's your job to find them all.

• Hunt down all 10 golden Jack-O-Lanterns hidden throughout ClubARK.
• For each Jack-O-Lantern, take a screenshot of your character standing next to it, clearly showing the Jack-O-Lantern's number.
  • We recommend using Photo Mode for some of the trickier ones!

• Once you’ve found them all, submit your 10 screenshots as proof in a private thread in ⁠the dedicated channels on the Official ARK Discord.
  

• The very first Survivors to successfully find and submit proof of all 10 Jack-O-Lanterns will receive a copy of ARK: Lost Colony Expansion Pass!

• Players can't collaborate.
• Thread must be private (and stay private).

Happy Scavenger Hunt!

The next winner of our Community Creature Vote will be featured on Genesis Part 1. Get your endlessly creative submissions ready, and you might see your creature making its debut with the release of the Genesis Part 1 map in ARK: Survival Ascended!

• The second round of voting ends on Friday, November 7th at 1 pm Pacific.
• The winner* will be announced in the Crunch on the same day.

• Rank the creatures in order of most preferred to least preferred
• The vote is limited to 1 submission per person (duplicate entries will be discarded)

Below are the candidates that have made it into the final 10. Find out more information about the creature by clicking on the hyperlink attached to the name. Cast your vote here.

• Palaeoctopus
• Irritator
• Abyssosaurus
• Crinoid
• Atopodentatus
• Rhomaleosaurus Aestosalus
• Saivodus
• Tullimonstrum
• Giant Stick Bug
• Giant Lobster

Overview of all the finalists here.

* Note that once the winner has been determined, we'll be reading through these threads and using them as inspiration for how the creature will be designed; aspects suggested may change.

Hey Survivors, after careful assessment, we've opted to begin the process of sunsetting a selection of our inactive official servers. Our goal is to ensure that we're always delivering the best experience possible, and official servers exist as a way for the community to play together without having to host their own. When we launch fresh content, typically, we put up more servers than we need in the long term to match the peak in user capacity; over time, these servers become ghost towns as players have dropped off and are waiting for the next major content release.

At the conclusion of the Bonus Rate Event on Monday, October 20th (around 1 PM Pacific), we’ll be opening transfers out of Isolated servers to the main network for items, characters, and creatures, as well as character transfers into Isolated for those who wish to move.

As part of this process, the servers will be renamed with the “SUNSET” prefix, following the same approach we’ve used in the past. Please note that once renamed, these servers will be removed from the in-game Favorites list, so you’ll need to search for them manually to reconnect.

After further evaluation, the following servers have been removed from the sunset list:

On December 8th, we'll be sunsetting these inactive Island servers, click on Show More to see the updated detailed list.

Non-Isolated

Non-Isolated

We still intend to provide capacity at launches as much as possible to meet the higher need during those periods.

We’re working with our partner at Nitrado to offer these saves after the scheduled sunset through Nitrado’s interface. Please stay tuned for more details.

Expire servers are temporary servers across the network that will eventually be removed, and you can find them by searching for "Expire" in the session filter.

These servers will be online until 10 am PST / 1 pm EST on December 8th. We're preemptively using our allocation for future maps to host some additional sessions that players can travel onto to farm, tame, and experience the newest content Gameplay. The same transfer restrictions apply in that you are only able to download your character, but you can freely take anything off. This is to help reduce load off some of the other servers, or provide players an option for those who just want to jump onto a new map temporarily.

Please note that these servers will no longer exist after 10 am PST / 1 pm EST on December 8th, so if you intend to use them, remember to transfer your items/creatures/characters off before that date, as nothing will be saved beyond that time period.

We’re thrilled to share that the community has already raised over $50,000 for Extra Life! Thank you to everyone who has contributed. It has been inspiring to see the community come together for a cause with the energy and dedication only ARK players bring. Your generosity has helped us reach our first donation milestone and will reward the community with a brand-new Dino TLC pass. We're less than 10k away from unlocking the second creature TLC, while supporting the incredible work of the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Together, we’re making a difference for kids and shaping the future of ARK!

While we won’t be able to host our usual 24-hour Extra Life livestream this year, we’re still going all-in on what matters most: uniting as a community to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and unlocking something special for the future of ARK: Survival Ascended.

For every $30,000 raised through the Studio Wildcard Extra Life charity campaign, the community will unlock a Dino TLC pass to be released throughout 2026, breathing new life into a classic creature of the ARK with updated gameplay and style. Up to four TLCs can be unlocked at the $120,000 milestone!

1. ↑ Quetzalcoatlus
2. ↓ Giganotosaurus
3. ↑ Megalosaurus
4. ↓ Araneo
5. ↑ Gallimimus
6. ↓ Thylacoleo
7. ⚌ Allosaurus
8. ↓ Brontosaurus
9. ↓ Carnotaurus
10. ↓ Plesiosaur

Donate now to any team member listed here to ensure your vote counts!

When donating to anyone on the Studio Wildcard Extra Life Team, not just Studio Wildcard directly, include a message with your chosen creature’s full first name preceded by a hashtag, like this (we’ll do our best to identify typos, but try to spell them correctly!):

• #Giganotosaurus
• Hello #Giganotosaurus
• Please give #Giganotosaurus a TLC!

If no hashtag vote is included in the donation message, the donation will still count towards the TLC total, but it won’t advance any particular dino’s voting tally.

• Every $1 donated = 1 vote
• A $50 donation with #Giganotosaurus = 50 votes for Giganotosaurus
• Five $10 donations with #Giganotosaurus = 50 votes for Giganotosaurus (10 x 5)

To keep the vote balanced and consistent, eligible creatures must meet the following criteria:

• Must be a creature from The Island
• Must be tameable
• Must be rideable or a shoulder pet
• Must not have previously received a TLC pass
• The following creatures have already had a TLC pass and are not eligible:
  • Argentavis
  • Dire Bear
  • Direwolf
  • Gigantopithecus
  • Mammoth
  • Parasaur
  • Procoptodon
  • Raptor
  • Tyrannosaurus Rex
  • Sabertooth
  • Sarcosuchus
  • Spinosaurus
  • Stegosaurus
  • Triceratops

To accommodate the new launch date of Valguero Ascended, we have adjusted the reveal dates.

• November 14 – First Winner
• November 21– Second Winner
• November 28 – Third Winner
• December 4 – Final Winner

Starting October 31st thru November 10th, we’ll be rolling out a selection of the community’s favorite dino colors on the official network, along with a sweet twist in place of the traditional boosted donation rates. For the event, you’ll be able to dig into Cake Slices that grant hefty bonuses to:

• Taming Cake Slice
• Breeding Cake Slice
• Imprint Cake Slice 
• EXP Cake Slice 
• Harvesting Cake Slice

​

• ID5 Cyan 
• ID 94 Teal
• ID68 DeepPink
• ID36 Dino Albino
• ID96 Glacial
• ID4 Yellow
• ID6  Magenta
• ID84  Mint
• ID95 PowderBlue
• ID76 Peach 
• ID57 DarkTurquoise
• ID67 LightPink
• ID58 MediumTurquoise
• ID91 Lavender
• ID2 Blue
• ID92  DarkTeal
• ID19 Dino Light Red
• ID53 Dino Medium Blue
• ID50 WyvernPurple1
• ID54 Dino Deep Blue
• ID11 Light Yellow
• ID88 LeafGreen
• ID59 TurquoiseafGreen
• ID27 Dino Dark Green

We’ve turned up the saturation for Extra Life—more colors, more variety, and more chances to spot rare shades roaming the wild. Expect your world to be brighter, bolder, and packed with some of the community's favorite hues! 💙

This weekend, the Official Network will be receiving bonus rates! It will be active until Monday, October 27.

• PVP/PVE: 2x Harvesting, Taming, and Experience, and Breeding
• Small Tribes: 4.5x Harvesting, Taming, and Experience + 4x Breeding
• ARKpocalypse: 5x Harvesting, Taming and Experience, and Breeding

Fan Art Gallery | Screenshot Gallery | Artist Feedback Form

​Welcome to The Hot Seat! 🌶️

On November 6th at 8 AM Pacific, for every $100 raised, Loaded Crysis will be testing a new hot sauce — each one hotter than the last — all while playing ARK: Survival Ascended with subscribers!
The community is raising money for Extra Life, supporting children’s hospitals through gaming.

Come hang out on YouTube, donate, and watch the heat (and chaos) rise for a great cause!

​

Join over 25 Ark content creators during Aaron Longstaff, Raasclark and Friends 24 Hour Extra Life Livestream!

The event will kick off at 11 am Pacific on Friday, November 7, and will continue until the next day at the same time. Make sure to mark your calendar so you don't miss it!

If you have any questions, want to stay up to date, or are interested in volunteering behind the scenes, direct all inquiries to @SongbirdGaming on Discord.

Creator: Chaos Bear Gaming
Chaos Bear Gaming goes over helpful tips and tricks for beginners and veterans alike about the newest map, Valguero Ascended.
YOUTUBE URL

Creator: Veno feat. Raasclark
In this Dingle Cup Challenge, Veno and Raaclark spin for dinos, add Mutation Points in, then battle them!
YOUTUBE URL

Evo ARK Giga by crocartsstuff

Yutyrannus by dovethecat

Happy Halloween by tomboynerdy23

Beyond the end by @TekARK_01

Seeking Water by @falco_luna

Artic by wetshoeiswet

Fan Art by berriechu

Photo Mode by stenrose

Photo Mode by eeylops

Photo Mode by frozen_soap

Genuinely so happy to be back on Valguero by xxrinxx

The roughest toughest cowboy on Valguero! by crispnugget

Enjoy your weekend! Studio Wildcard

Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark
Discord: discord.com/invite/playark
Reddit: reddit.com/r/playark
Instagram: instagram.com/survivetheark
Twitch: twitch.tv/survivetheark
Steam: steamcommunity.com/app/346110
Youtube: youtube.com/survivetheark
Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark
Threads: threads.net/@survivetheark
Official Wiki: ark.wiki.gg