Gargantar’s Defensive Abilities Revealed Ahead of ARK’s September 30 Update

By ZeroCool | September 26, 2026 | Comments Off on Gargantar’s Defensive Abilities Revealed Ahead of ARK’s September 30 Update
Gargantar in Studio Wildcard’s official Community Crunch 525 preview
Image: Image: Studio Wildcard / Community Crunch 525

Gargantar will become harder to bring down as it feeds, and its enormous stomach can provide shelter for allies as well as danger for enemies. Studio Wildcard’s latest preview gives players a clearer idea of the dragon’s role ahead of its scheduled September 30 arrival in ARK: Survival Ascended.

Community Crunch 525 confirms that Gargantar is coming for ARK: Dragontopia owners alongside Cerberax and the Therizinosaurus TLC. It also sets out the revised engine-upgrade timetable, a purchase deadline for two premium mods, and the Official Network’s weekend bonuses.

Gargantar turns feeding into a defensive advantage

The new preview connects Gargantar’s appetite directly to its resilience: consuming more makes the creature tougher to take down. That gives feeding a potential battlefield purpose beyond simply keeping a tame supplied with food.

Its stomach also has different uses depending on who ends up inside. Wildcard describes allies being protected within the dragon, while enemies face a harmful experience. The announcement does not give exact protection values, damage numbers, capacity limits, or the conditions needed to use those abilities.

For tribes, the interesting possibility is a creature that combines durability with a way to protect teammates. Whether that becomes practical for rescues, transport through a fight, or another role will depend on the released mechanics. The preview supports those questions, but it is not yet a complete strategy guide.

Gargantar remains scheduled for September 30 for ARK: Dragontopia owners. Cerberax and the Therizinosaurus TLC are scheduled for the same day. The engine delay has not moved those three additions into October.

September’s content update and October’s engine upgrade are separate

Players should now plan around three distinct dates. September 30 brings the creature update. On October 5, the Unreal Engine 5.8 Public Test Realm beta client is scheduled to open on Steam. The full engine upgrade follows on October 28 across all platforms.

The Steam test is intended to help exercise the new build before the wider launch. It is not the same as moving every live server to UE 5.8 on October 5, and this announcement does not provide instructions for a console beta.

We covered the revised dates in our UE 5.8 rollout report. This week’s Community Crunch now includes the schedule in the official news roundup, alongside the unchanged September creature plans.

Mod authors face a separate preparation window

Overwolf’s technical notice, included by Wildcard, says cooking servers will go offline on October 5 as the UE 5.8 test client and beta DevKit become available. Mods will be rebuilt in batches, with projects showing significant issues identified for further author attention.

This concerns the infrastructure that processes mods. It is not an announcement that all official or unofficial gameplay servers will be offline for the same period.

Modding is scheduled to reopen with the October 28 engine release. A list of projects needing author action will accompany that stage. Cooking and moderation may take longer during the first few days because of increased demand, and the notice warns that testing or rebuilding work could change the dates.

As a precaution, unofficial server owners should retain recent world and configuration backups and follow compatibility notices for their installed mods. A mod’s absence from an early problem report should not be treated as a guarantee that every feature has been tested.

Power Rangers premium mods leave sale after September 30

There is also a time-sensitive purchase notice. Both Mighty Morphin Power Rangers premium mods are 50% off through September 30 and are being withdrawn from sale after that date.

The announcement says purchasers can keep the mods. This is a deadline for buying them, not a statement that existing owners will lose access when the sale ends. Anyone considering a purchase should check the relevant in-game listing before the deadline rather than assuming the mods will remain available later.

Weekend bonuses run through September 28

The Official Network’s current bonus event is scheduled to continue until Monday, September 28. The listed rates are:

  • Official PvP and PvE: 2x harvesting, taming, experience, and breeding.
  • Small Tribes: 4.5x harvesting, taming, and experience, with 4x breeding.
  • ARKpocalypse: 5x harvesting, taming, experience, and breeding.

These are the announced Official Network settings, not a promise that an unofficial server will use the same multipliers. Check your community’s configuration before planning a breeding or resource-gathering session around them.

Conquest details include an older transfer schedule

The roundup repeats Conquest Season 8 information for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. Its map allocation is listed as 18 maps, all Genesis Part 1. Separately, it identifies 12 servers in Cluster A and six servers in Cluster B. The source’s map allocation and server counts should not be confused with 18 different map types.

The Conquest settings list 5x rates and permit Tek except for the Tek Grenade, Tek Tapejara Saddle, Tek Megalodon Saddle, Tek Rock Drake Saddle, Tek Mosasaur Saddle, and Tek Railgun.

The accompanying transfer notes describe an earlier arrangement: Cluster A had transfers with Classic before those servers closed, while Cluster B initially restricted transfers to its six servers for two weeks. The listed cross-cluster opening date is July 17 at 10 a.m. Pacific. That date has already passed; it is historical season information, not a new September transfer opening.

For the coming days, the actionable priorities are the September 28 bonus-event deadline, the September 30 creature update and premium-mod purchase cutoff, and preparations for October’s engine testing. Gargantar’s released statistics and the final patch notes will be the next pieces needed to turn this preview into practical taming and combat advice.

Source: Studio Wildcard — Community Crunch 525, also published through the official ARK: Survival Ascended Steam announcements.

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