ARK: Survival Ascended’s Enigmasaur Update: What’s Free, What’s Paid and What Changed

Studio Wildcard released what it called a “massive” update for ARK: Survival Ascended at 6 p.m. Pacific on November 6, 2026, the game’s official X account said. It adds the shapeshifting Enigmasaur, gives the Giganotosaurus a free rework and moves the game to Unreal Engine 5.8, the studio said in its weekly Community Crunch post on Steam.

Not all of it is free, though. The Giganotosaurus rework and the engine upgrade come to every owner of the game, while the Enigmasaur is part of a paid creature pack. Here is what each part costs and what changes in the game.

What is free and what you pay for

Game Empress checked the US Steam store at 23:14 UTC on November 7, 2026. Steam prices change during sales, so these are a snapshot rather than fixed prices.

The Season 1 pack also includes the Burrowbuck and the three-headed Cerberax, which came out earlier. The Enigmasaur is the third and final creature in it, according to Wildcard’s announcement. Players who want to see how Steam prices differ outside the US can compare regions in our Steam prices by country tracker.

The update arrived to a busy player base. Steam’s public player API showed 21,855 people playing ARK: Survival Ascended on Steam at the time of our check. That count covers Steam only. The game is also sold on the Epic Games Store, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

A creature that becomes other creatures

Wildcard says the Enigmasaur does not just copy other animals. It turns into them, and convincingly enough that members of the species it copies may not notice. It can also keep some abilities from earlier forms. The studio’s own example is a Rex that still has a scorpion’s sting.

Taming it is meant to be unusual too, but Wildcard has not explained the method in its announcement. Players will have to work that out in the game.

The Giganotosaurus is harder to tame now

The Giga rework is the third creature overhaul picked by player votes, Wildcard said. Players chose it during the studio’s Extra Life charity drive in 2025.

The old method was simple: find a safe spot and use a lot of tranquilizers. Wildcard says that is no longer enough. Players now have to prove themselves against some of the game’s toughest threats before facing the Giga in a fight. Once tamed, it gets a new stomping and tail-slam attack. It can also pass some of its rage to nearby allies in battle.

What Unreal Engine 5.8 changes

The engine upgrade is aimed at performance. Wildcard says the new version uses Nanite Voxels to draw foliage more efficiently and Lumen Lite, a lighter way to handle dynamic lighting on low-end PCs. The studio says this should improve performance without making the game’s environments look worse. Game Empress has not tested the new version, so we cannot yet say how much faster it runs.

Players can vote for four more reworks

The Giga came from last year’s charity vote, and this year’s drive is already under way. In the same post, Wildcard said the community had raised more than $107,000 for Extra Life, which supports Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Every $40,000 raised unlocks one creature rework, up to four in total.

Each $1 donated counts as one vote for the creature named in the donation message. Wildcard plans to announce the winners on four dates: November 13, November 20, November 27 and December 4. The studio says its Extra Life campaigns have raised more than $1.2 million over the years.

Some official Island servers close Nov. 29

The same post repeats a less welcome note for some players. Wildcard says it will shut down a list of inactive official Island servers on November 29. Before that, those servers get a “SUNSET” prefix in their names, which also removes them from the in-game Favorites list, so players have to search for them by hand to reconnect.

For players with progress on those servers, Wildcard says it is working with its server partner Nitrado to offer the saves through Nitrado’s interface after the shutdown. It has not shared the details yet.

Halloween event ends Nov. 11, Dragontopia grows Dec. 10

Two more dates matter for current players. The Fear Ascended Halloween event, with its ghost creatures and themed decorations, runs until November 11, according to Wildcard’s announcement.

Then on December 10, ARK: Dragontopia gets a major expansion that adds a new skyworld. Dragontopia itself is already on sale for $29.99. Wildcard said two more of its creatures would be shown on streamer HillbillyWilly’s Extra Life broadcast on November 7, with the final two coming in a video on GP’s channel on Monday, November 9.