Community Crunch 486: Solwyn, the Light in the Darkness

From beneath the frozen wastes, a new evolution rises to challenge the malevolent shadow of its darker twin.

Sharpened by the strange forces that fuel its transformation, this swift guardian glides across ice fields, creates fleeting pathways, and moves through frozen hazards with confident precision and grace.

Their unrelenting protectiveness drives the Solwyn to fiercely guard their bonded rider. It follows a single rule: to keep you safe from the darkness behind you.

Which evolution will you choose to have by your side when ARK: Lost Colony comes out on December 16th?

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We’re thrilled to share that the community has raised over 190K for Extra Life!

Giganotosaurus steps up for the third TLC pass!

Since 2015, the ARK community has been showing up for Extra Life, and this year, you’ve helped us shatter our previous fundraising record of $188,000. With the event still underway, donations have already surpassed an astounding $190,000 for kids in need!

We're baking up a special little treat in celebration of breaking the fundraising record so keep an eye out for when more info lands on the menu.

The ARK community continues to amaze us with its kindness, passion, and willingness to come together for a cause that truly matters. Your contributions will make a real difference for the kids and families supported by Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.

Your generosity has helped us reach all of our donation milestones so far and will reward the community with five brand-new Dino TLC passes to be released throughout 2026! There is still time until the fourth creature is locked in, so get your votes in!

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

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

• Syntac & Heather - $56,364
• Raas, Aaron & Friends - $30,342
• HillbillyWilly - $19,500
• Sandi - $9,482
• PVE Official Modded - $8,000
• Garuga's Modding Workshop - $6,667
• MysticKorea / Mystic on Ark - $5,536
• Loaded Crysis - $5,004
• Phlinger Phoo - $3,321
• ARKADE -$3,095
• GP - $2,922
• Ark Community Charity Giveaway - $2,101
• Dragonheart - $1,560
• Veno - $1,525
• ARKATRAZ III - $1,500
• Ninja & Friends - $1,199
• crispnugget and friends - $1,100
• Trafalgar - $826
• BEYPlaysGames - $760
• The ARK Art Ascended Team - $730
• Etholdir - $501
• NomadARK - $466
• Alsano - $300
• Meepachan - $270
• Wild Hyenas - $247
• Larry Smith - $225
• Eaglelite30 - $212
• Zyraphyre - $207
• Yggstraordinary - $185
• Find the rest of our roster here!

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

Each winner will be locked in at 1 PM Pacific on that date and revealed the same day in the Crunch.

• December 5 – Fourth Winner
• December 12 – Final Winner

Ella Grace's journey began with a mysterious limp, leading to a four-year search for answers. Multiple surgeries and misdiagnoses left her family feeling lost. After finally getting a one-in-a-million diagnosis of Chronic Recurrent Multifocal Osteomyelitis (CRMO), she was relieved to hear that UF Health Shands Children's Hospital could provide what she needed for her rare bone disease.

Though incurable, the hospital's specialized care and treatment plan brought stability and progress. Thanks to donations through CMN, UF Health Shands Children's Hospital provides specialized care and a comforting environment, empowering Ella Grace to face CRMO with strength.

You can read the full article about Ella's journey here!

All donations go directly to UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital, a nationally recognized cornerstone of the UF Health Shands campus. The hospital provides expert care across more than 20 pediatric specialties and is home to the community’s first emergency department dedicated solely to children, the UF Health Shands Pediatric ER.
Serving children and families throughout Florida and beyond, UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital is a leading destination for pediatric patients from across the United States and around the world who need specialized care for complex medical conditions.

UF Health Shands recently celebrated the ribbon-cutting of Unit 44, a fully renovated pediatric medicine and surgical floor designed with children and families in mind. The unit features all-new private rooms with tech-enabled amenities for families, dedicated gathering spaces for siblings, and brand-new toddler and teen playrooms equipped with four large TVs, allowing patients to use each screen independently or sync them together to play their favorite games on what might be the biggest screen they’ve ever seen, perfect for jumping into ARK and other games. Interactive healing walls and an upgraded procedure room further enhance the patient experience. The $30 million+ transformation was funded through a combination of hospital budget, state appropriations, and private philanthropy, including over $4 million from Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals supporters (that's you guys!) .

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.

The Official Network will be receiving bonus rates! It will be active until Monday, December 8th.

• 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

Creator: DarkEdgeTV
Check out DarkEdgeTV’s deep dive into everything this beautiful Freemium modded creature can do!
YOUTUBE URL

Creator: Phlinger Phoo
Phlinger Phoo shows you how to complete the Turkey Trial and get all the cosmetics!

Rockwell spinning the Aberration ARK by @TekARK_01

Deinonychus by @kinosei_x2

Bear-chan by @NAMCOOo

Starter Pack, Land, Air, and Sea by Tox

Oh, what a happy land we live in by @nanoStel

Entrance Granted, Locke. by @TekARK_01

Photo Mode by frozen_soap

Photo Mode by jimmybaguette

Photo Mode by foodplz021

Photo Mode by tsukumono01

Photo Mode by monsieur_jam

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