ARK’s Latest Update Has a Dragon! Get All the Details Right Here!

Studio Wildcard officially announced that ARK: Survival Evolved has received a new update this week. In addition, there will be a one week special event to coincide with the game’s one-year anniversary. You can check out a gameplay trailer for the game’s latest update in the player below. The new additions this week include a 10-seat Dino Taxi ride, a new Boss Fighting Pit and more additions with the ARK Dev Update #242.

Two of the new added creatures this week included the Diplodocus, a slow-moving dinosaur that’s capable of carrying as much as 10 players at a time. Another addition is the Leech, which is a disease-carrying, blood-sucking creature. In addition, there is the new structure Training Dummy now displays floating Damage Per Second values in the game, which show how strong each creature is. Another new mechanic in the game is Permanent Diseases and Cures, which allows players to infect Dodos to use them as Disease Vectors. If players get a permanent disease, they will continue to have it across respawns, and it can only be cured with an antidote to get rid of it.

The one-week Ark Birthday Event will allow players to find Candles in Supply Crates, which can be used to make ARK Birthday Cakes. After each candle is blown out, a message to the players occurs and exclusive items are then given. These include player and dino party hats, Buirthday Suits which make characters appear naked (with censor-pixelization). The cakes can be eaten for a major XP buff as well.

Here’s a breakdown of new features for Update #242. There’s also some images for the new update in the gallery below. Click on the thumbnails to see the full-size images.

• Dragon Arena & Dragon Boss Fight
• Breeding Mechanics Phase 2: Interactive Baby Raising (cuddle with your dino babies, pet, walk, and hand-feed them for extra benefits and greater affinity for whomever raised them once they grow up!)
• Optional RPG Stat Mode: Displays floating in-world damage numbers for all Player-Related Damage Events
• Added ‘Follow Range’ (Low/Medium/Far) Setting Per Tamed Dino
• Added option for PvE Servers to disable building around critical resource node regions
• Added server option to override per-Item Crafting costs
• Added server option to override the loot tables for each kind of supply crate
• Added server option to limit number of members in Tribes. Default: no limit
• Multi-Seat Saddles (Galli, Diplodocus, etc). Dinos now have an option to enable public seating. Dino Taxi service, ahoy!\
• Servers can now optionally enable an “offline raiding prevention” mode which will make Dinos/Structures invincible if no owner is logged-in (indicated via the head whether the owner player/tribe is logged-in or not). Recommend that server owners utilize this with care, as it may have undesired side effects in a competitive environment
• Tribe Groups Phase 2: Support for Limited Non-Admin Invites and promotions/demotions per group! Also “Prevent Dino
• Unclaiming” checkbox, and other new per-rank options
• Added Alpha Mosasaurus (contains lots of Black Pearls)
• Alpha creatures XP reduced by 45%
• Auto-Turrets can no longer be built on Quetz/Sauro/Mosa/Plesi/Paracer platforms (Plant turrets can’t be grown on them). Any existing turrets on such platforms will no longer fire. Otherwise they’re now only allowed on Rafts and non-moving Bases
• Plant Turrets now consume Fertilizer per shot, and also will not shoot if no water is in the crop plot
  Approximate +100% increase to Saurupod and Paraceratherium respective Weight stats
• To join in the epic battle, journey over to the Steam page for a detailed feature list and weekly reveals of new dinosaur dossiers, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, subscribe to us on YouTube, visit the website at www.playark.com and watch us tame and train leviathan dinosaurs on Twitch.TV.

ARK: Survival Evolved is available now for Windows PC via Steam. Full launches are planned for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 later this year. The game is playable now on Xbox One via the ID@Xbox program.