ASA Update Adds Enigmasaur and Giga TLC as Extra Life, Server and Conquest Plans Expand

By ZeroCool | November 7, 2026 | Comments Off on ASA Update Adds Enigmasaur and Giga TLC as Extra Life, Server and Conquest Plans Expand
Official ARK: Survival Ascended concept art of the redesigned Giganotosaurus, shown in profile beside a human silhouette for scale
Image: Studio Wildcard

ARK: Survival Ascended has received a packed set of updates and player-facing plans alongside its move to Unreal Engine 5.8. The immediate additions are the Enigmasaur and the Giganotosaurus TLC, while the wider announcement also sets out Extra Life voting dates, a November official-network color event, inactive-server closures, a new modding contest and the ruleset for official Conquest servers.

The headline for players logging in now is that Fantastic Tames Season 1 is available on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation. That season includes Burrowbuck, Cerberax and Enigmasaur. The Enigmasaur is built around imitation: it can assume the form of other creatures and can preserve elements of what it has learned from a previous form after changing again. Studio Wildcard’s example is a Rex form retaining a scorpion-style sting. Recruiting one is also intended to be a distinct challenge rather than a conventional tame.

The Giganotosaurus has received the creature TLC unlocked through the Extra Life campaign. Its revised taming process requires survivors to establish themselves against dangerous creatures before they can draw the Giga into a high-stakes encounter. A successfully tamed Giga can provide a tribe-wide combat benefit, but players will need to account for the danger of fighting around an enraged one. The Giga TLC released November 6, and Giganotosaurus is no longer eligible for further TLC voting.

Extra Life voting continues, with four more TLC slots at stake

Studio Wildcard reports that the community has raised more than $107,000 for Extra Life so far, surpassing the first two creature-TLC milestones. Donations to Team Wildcard go to UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital, while donations made through the Studio Wildcard Extra Life team can also contribute toward a creature vote.

Each dollar donated equals one vote when the donation message includes a hashtag followed by the creature’s full first name, such as #Giganotosaurus. Donations without a hashtag still count toward the fundraising total but do not add to a specific creature’s tally. The campaign offers a TLC milestone for each $40,000 raised, up to four total. The remaining winners are scheduled for November 13, November 20, November 27 and December 4.

Not every dinosaur is available for selection. Eligible candidates must originate from The Island, be tameable, be rideable or function as a shoulder pet, and have not already received a TLC pass. Among the creatures excluded because they have already received TLC work are Araneo, Argentavis, Dire Bear, Direwolf, Gigantopithecus, Giganotosaurus, Mammoth, Parasaur, Raptor, Rex, Sabertooth, Sarcosuchus, Spinosaurus, Stegosaurus and Triceratops. Megalosaurus and Quetzalcoatlus are also excluded as upcoming TLC recipients.

Official-network colors and inactive-server deadline

From November 13 through November 23, the official network will feature a collection of community-favorite wild creature colors. The lineup includes vivid options such as Cyan, DeepPink, Glacial, Magenta, Mint, PowderBlue, Peach, Lavender, DarkTeal, WyvernPurple1 and several Dino color variants. The period will also use Cake Slice bonuses for taming, breeding, imprinting, experience and harvesting instead of the normal donation-rate boost approach. For players hunting mutations, colors or themed breeding lines, that makes the window worth planning around even though the announcement does not publish numerical multipliers for those Cake Slice bonuses.

Players on designated low-population official servers have a more urgent deadline. Studio Wildcard has renamed the affected servers with a SUNSET prefix and intends to take them offline on November 29. These servers will no longer appear in a player’s in-game Favorites list once renamed, so survivors who need to access them before closure must locate them through search. The studio says it is working with Nitrado on making saves available through Nitrado’s interface after the shutdown, with further details to come. Anyone with bases, creatures or items on a SUNSET server should make plans well ahead of November 29 rather than treating the rename as a routine label change.

Conquest returns as a faster official PvP option

The announcement also confirms that official Conquest servers are open for PC, Xbox and PlayStation. Introduced to ASA by Snail Games, Conquest is aimed at large-scale PvP and uses higher rates to help tribes establish themselves and recover after defeats. The published configuration lists a 5x XP rate, increasing to 7x XP during events. That structure makes Conquest a separate consideration from standard official play for groups seeking quicker early progression and more rapid rebuilding after a raid or wipe.

Because it is a PvP-focused mode with its own settings and enforcement support, prospective Conquest tribes should review its rules before committing characters and tames. The official announcement directs players needing season support to the Conquest Enforcement Discord.

Arkathon 2 and Dragontopia’s next teasers

UE 5.8 also coincides with Arkathon 2: Season of the Hunt, a CurseForge-backed ASA modding contest with a $30,000 prize pool distributed across 44 winning entries. The two principal tracks are Gameplay, for new systems and survival or exploration-focused features, and Custom Cosmetics, covering visual work for survivors, creatures, structures and equipment. Twenty main-category winners will share $20,000, four community-voted entries will share $8,000, and 20 mid-contest spotlight winners will divide $2,000. Submissions open November 11, giving mod teams a defined starting date to prepare projects and collaborators.

Finally, ARK: Dragontopia is due to receive four more preview reveals across two official creator broadcasts. Two additions were scheduled for the November 7 HillbillyWilly stream beginning at 7 a.m. Pacific, followed by two final teasers in GP’s video on Monday, November 9. The announcement does not confirm the identities or gameplay functions of those teased additions, so players should treat the dates as preview timing rather than as a release schedule for Dragontopia content.

Sources

🔴 Live server browser: Find and filter every ARK: Survival Ascended server with real-time player counts, maps, PvP/PvE and votes — updated continuously.

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