Wildcard, the developer of the popular dino-survival ARK: Survival Evolved and ARK 2, announced in a blog post the return of the “Community Creature Submission”, in which players can send in ideas for new dinos. Wildcard collects these ideas and will then implement a few of them into the game.
Here’s what’s going on: In the latest Community Crunch 344 from 14 January 2023, developer Wildcard announces the return of a popular community competition. This refers to the Community Creature Submission, in which players can submit their ideas for new creatures to the development team. Some of these will then find their way into the game.
Wildcard collects dino ideas in the Creature Contest
Every fan of ARK: Survival Evolved currently has the opportunity to upload their own idea for a Dino in the official forum, which may then be officially added to ARK or ARK 2. However, it must be a dinosaur that actually existed in the past.
Players can use Wikipedia, YouTube, or other sources to prove what abilities the Dino should have in ARK, and the developers will try to implement everything.
- The uploading of new ideas ends on 23 January at 1:00 PM PT.
Barely 18 hours after the announcement, there are already around 300 entries of new Dinos that the community would like to see. Often these are larger versions of existing creatures, like a Giga-Triceratops or a Giga-Raptor. But even completely new ideas like a sea cucumber come from the community.
The current rules for the contest are as follows:
- One thread per creature.
- If someone has already made a thread with your creature suggestion, feel free to upvote the thread and post your own ideas and thoughts into that existing thread.
- Must be a real-world extinct/prehistoric creature (dinosaurs, mammals, reptiles, etc.).
- Developers are disqualified from posting their own ideas.
- Supplemental information (wiki links, images, art) is preferred.
In the next 9 days, thousands of ideas will surely come together. How many ideas Wildcard will then implement as new creatures is not yet known. We also don’t know whether the creatures will be added to ARK 1 or are only planned for ARK 2. After Wildcard recently teased an engine change to UE 5 for ARK 1 with a meme, it would be entirely possible that ARK 1 will still be maintained.
Are you looking for more helpful guides on ARK: Survival Evolved? Then look at our ARK guide overview, where you will find more of our dinosaur, crafting, resource, and technology guides. You can also chat with us and other players on our Discord server. We’re looking forward to seeing you!