The survival game ARK Survival Ascended has now been playable for over a year and continues to receive new expansions on a regular basis. These bring maps, dinosaurs and blueprints into the Unreal Engine 5 version of the dinosaur adventure that players might already know from ARK: Survival Evolved. So does the latest addon.
What are these new expansions? ARK Survival Ascended received two expansions on December 20, 2024. On the one hand, the free expansion “Extinction Ascended” came into play. On the other hand, the paid expansion “Bob’s Tall Tales 3: Wasteland War” was released.
Extinction Ascended contains the map of the same name “Extinction”, which is characterized by an abandoned, futuristic city in the center of the map. At the edge of the map you can discover various biomes that are located in a kind of demarcating dome. For example, there is a snowy landscape in one of these domes, even though there is only glowing wasteland around the dome.
The paid expansion Bob’s Tall Tales 3: Wasteland War brings new Mad Max-style content to the survival game. These include cars, new structures and weapons as well as a dog.
You can see a trailer for the two expansions here:
ARK Survival Ascended shows Extinction and “Mad Max” cars in the trailer
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Players on the “wrong” console will have to wait: Xbox players have the bad luck of having to be patient at the moment. As the developers of the survival game announced via X.com, they are still waiting for the update to be certified and released by Microsoft. For now, only players on PlayStation and PC can play the new content.
The dinosaurs meet Mad Max
What’s the deal with the “Mad Max” cars? Bob’s Tall Tales 3: Wasteland War brings the so-called “BattleRigs” into the game. These are cars that the developers refer to as “all-terrain war machines”. These come with a variety of different devices that you can build on the vehicles. There should be a total of 10,000 possible variations.
The design of the cars is very much based on the style of Mad Max. Everything seems equally rustic and brutal. The new outfits for your characters are also designed appropriately and have spikes on the shoulders, for example.
There is also a garage for the BattleRigs where you can customize your cars.
What else does the expansion bring? In addition to the BattleRigs, there is now also a dog, the Armadoggo. He digs for treasures for you and gets you items. He also has armor that can be equipped with various accessories.
A new grenade that can put out fires and an explosive spear are also waiting for you. The update also brings a fresh laboratory and a machine with which you can produce dry food and raw materials from organic food.
A complete list of Bob’s Tall Tales 3 content can be found on Steam.
With the release of Extinction Ascended, some creatures that were already released with the map in ARK Survival Evolved are now playable again. These include, above all, the Snow Owl, the Gacha and the Managarmr.
The expansion also brings a completely new creature into play, the Dreadnoughtus. This is a herbivorous dinosaur that has a long neck similar to the Brachiosaur or the Diplodocus.
Already in September 2024, ARK Survival Ascended received a major update with 2 expansions, which at that time added the “Aberration” map and the associated creatures as well as Bob’s Tall Tales 2: Survival hit ARK gets a new, strong expansion, while ARK 2 is hushed up