A decade of survival, taming, and community mayhem — ARK: Survival Ascended is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a massive content drop, a performance overhaul, and the arrival of a brand-new island map.
The free anniversary event is live from June 5–17, packed with wild cosmetics like the Birthday Suit and Party Hat, along with Party Dinos, cake buffs, a Club ARK makeover, and even a DJ Party emote and rave dance. If you’ve ever wanted to survive extinction while doing a shimmy next to a triceratops in sunglasses, now’s your chance.
Lemnokis Island Expansion Joins Astraeos DLC
The spotlight addition is Lemnokis, the first major expansion in the Astraeos DLC. Built by famed modder Nekatus, this sprawling map blends ancient ruins, glacier caves, jungle temples, and towering redwoods with new gameplay twists. That includes ARK’s first-ever duo minibosses, Kalydonios and Erymanthian — two boars infused with fire and poison, because one deadly hog wasn’t enough.
Expect deep-sea resource zones, Maelstrom storms offshore, and the return of the fan-favorite Snow Owls, all wrapped in some of the most ambitious biome variety seen in the series so far.
Unreal Engine 5.5 Update Brings Major Boosts
Alongside the new content, ARK: Survival Ascended now runs on Unreal Engine 5.5, bringing notable visual and performance upgrades. This includes reduced load times, better long-distance shadow quality, and smaller install sizes thanks to optional DLC downloads. On PlayStation 5 Pro, the update adds native PSSR support, boosting frame rates by up to 30 percent.
A Decade of Dino Mayhem
It’s been ten years since ARK: Survival Evolved kicked off on Steam Early Access, growing into a full-blown survival ecosystem across platforms and spawning spin-offs, community mods, and even an animated TV series. With the release of Lemnokis and UE5.5 upgrades, the current-gen Survival Ascended version looks to carry that legacy forward with style.
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