The Enigmasaur, the shapeshifting creature that wraps up ARK Fantastic Tames Season 1, arrives in ARK: Survival Ascended on November 6, Studio Wildcard announced in Community Crunch 528, posted the evening of October 16. The same post opens this year’s Extra Life charity campaign, where donations unlock and vote on creature TLCs.
The Details
The Enigmasaur does not just imitate other species, the dossier says: “it becomes them,” convincingly enough to join a pack of Direwolves and hunt with it. Taming it works differently from other creatures:
- Show it that you have tamed the creature it is currently mimicking.
- Repeat as it cycles through forms until it accepts your goodwill.
Once tamed, its “morphic memory” keeps each learned creature’s traits whatever shape it takes. Studio Wildcard’s example: after it drops a Pulmonoscorpius form to become a Rex, its attacks still stun as if it had a stinger. In its own body, it can use all of its learned abilities at once.
It is the third creature in Fantastic Tames Season 1, a $9.99 add-on on Steam whose Burrowbuck and Cerberax are already out. The Giganotosaurus TLC also lands November 6.
Extra Life returns for a twelfth year, with the ARK community past $1.2 million raised “to help kids in need.” This year:
- Every $40,000 raised unlocks a TLC for a classic creature, up to four.
- Each $1 donated is one vote; add the creature’s name as a hashtag (#Giganotosaurus) to your donation message.
- 19 creatures are eligible, from the Raptor and Rex to the Quetzalcoatlus.
- Winners are revealed November 13, November 20, November 27 and December 4.
Donations to Team Wildcard go to UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital. From November 13 to 23, official servers get community-favorite dino colors plus Taming, Breeding, Imprint, EXP and Harvesting cake slices in place of the usual boosted donation rates.
Also in the post: the Unreal Engine 5.8 upgrade is still due October 28, with a test realm update next week focused on GPU performance. A list of inactive official servers is sunset on November 29, a new Conquest PvP season starts in early November, and bonus rates run on official servers until Monday, October 19.
What This Means for Players
Because taming the Enigmasaur means showing it a tame of whatever it is mimicking, tribes with a wide stable of common creatures should have the easiest time. If your favorite classic creature needs work, a tagged donation is your vote.
For more on taming and survival, our guide to taming cows in Rust covers another survival game’s approach, our Palworld guides cover creature-collecting survival, and Jurassic World Evolution 3’s Prehistoric East update has more dinosaurs.
When and Where
The Enigmasaur and the Giganotosaurus TLC arrive November 6; the Unreal Engine 5.8 upgrade arrives October 28. ARK: Survival Ascended is on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Source: Studio Wildcard, “Community Crunch 528: Not Quite What It Seems,” Steam, October 16, 2026 (Eastern).