Studio Wildcard has dated the next major technical update to Ark: Survival Ascended for September 30, when the dinosaur survival game moves to Unreal Engine 5.8. The developer set out the plan in its latest Community Crunch, PCGamesN reports, and the version is a change from the team's earlier stated intention to move to Unreal Engine 5.7.
Ark: Survival Ascended launched into early access almost three years ago as an Unreal Engine 5 rebuild of Ark: Survival Evolved. Studio Wildcard framed the new upgrade as groundwork rather than a feature release.
Our engine team has been hard at work on the upgrade, focusing on tangible performance improvements, platform-specific fixes, and stronger technical foundations for everything still ahead.
A Therizinosaurus overhaul and two new creatures
The engine update is not shipping alone. The same day brings a TLC — Tender Loving Care — pass for the Therizinosaurus, a creature the developer said players voted to see reworked. Studio Wildcard said the pass will bring “new life and personality” to the creature while keeping the harvesting role players already use it for.
Two creatures are also being added to Ark: Survival Ascended's expansion passes on September 30, and each is tied to a separate purchase rather than the base update. The Gargantar, a dragon the developer describes as a behemoth that treats the Arks as a feeding ground, joins the roster for owners of the Dragontopia DLC.
The other is Cerberax, a three-headed creature that forms the second release in Fantastic Tames Season 1, following the Burrowbuck in May. Its heads are aligned to fire, electric and poison elements, and Studio Wildcard said each has a temperament of its own and plays off the others, with attacks that can be chained between heads. The developer indicated the creature can carry a lone player into battle but has more to offer groups, suggesting it supports multiple riders.
What lands before then
Ahead of the September date, the final update to Ark Astraeos — the game's Greek mythology island DLC — arrives on Wednesday, August 26 and adds a creature called the Boaratos.
Studio Wildcard has not published performance figures for the Unreal Engine 5.8 build, and has not detailed which platform-specific issues the upgrade addresses. Of the three content additions landing alongside the engine move, the Therizinosaurus TLC is the one available to every Ark: Survival Ascended player; Gargantar and Cerberax are gated behind the Dragontopia and Fantastic Tames passes respectively.