‘ARK: Survival Evolved’ Volcano Will Go Active Soon, Players Should Plan To Move


Studio Wildcard has sent out a warning to all ARK: Survival Evolved players currently surviving on the Island map. The volcano there has laid dormant since the game first hit Steam Early Access in the summer of 2015. Things are about to get more active in an upcoming update, and players who make their home there will want to start the moving process.

ARK: Survival Evolved on the PC is currently scheduled to receive update 257 on April 30, per patch notes from the official website. How likely that will be since it is a Sunday is open for debate. Still, the patch is expected to turn the Island volcano active, which will essentially clear out structures built on the top and upper sides of the mountain when it starts to erupt.

“We haven’t put out the exclusion zone because we’re not quite done finalizing the area that’s going to be impacted. We don’t want people to pick up their entire base and relocate it only to find out it’s fine and not a big deal and they lost tons of work because we were inaccurate. We’ll be putting the border walls in when it’s all locked,” Senior gameplay designer Kayd Hendricks (aka TheRightHand) explained in an update.

“That said, if you’d like to have a rough approximate and make decisions based on that (better safe than sorry, so to speak.), if you are currently located anywhere on the top half of the volcano, you should probably move your butt.”

‘ARK: Survival Evolved’ players should prepare to move if they have bases above the red line. [Image by Studio Wildcard]

The volcano is one of the two major metal spawn points on the Island and currently the more hospitable of the two. As such, ARK: Survival Evolved players have fought for control of the area by building bases to lock down the metal spawns. Sometimes this leads to metal from not spawning.

The battle over the Volcano metal spawns can be particularly painful for PVE servers where there is no way to remove bases or structures built in and around the volcano. Turning the volcano active will make the area more dynamic and potentially change the entire metagame around metal farming.

This isn’t the first time Studio Wildcard has made changes to the Island map that caused ARK: Survival Evolved players to pack up and move their base. The addition of the Redwood forest caused changes to the center of the map along with adjustments to the surrounding swamp and the snow biome.

Fortunately, the developers are giving ARK Survivors plenty of warning about changes that will affect them. Expect to see virtual walls placed around the volcano to mark where the danger areas are that will be impacted by the map changes.

The red circle marks the volcano on the Island map. [Image by ARK: Survival Evolved Wiki]

Other changes coming with the 257 patch include four new dinosaurs, one of them a Giant Bee, plus new Tek equipment like a Megalodon Saddle, Cloning Chamber, Turret, and Grenade. A new Tek Cave will also be added while the user interface (UI) refresh will continue with more changes.

The UI changes have been a point of contention for ARK: Survival Evolved players as the light blue text on the blue background in the inventory screens has caused readability issues for many Survivors. It will be interesting to see if Studio Wildcard changes its approach to colors and font with the next update.

PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players will have a while longer to prepare for the changes to the volcano. The ARK: Survival Evolved console update typically arrives two to four weeks after the PC patch is released. In this case, it should arrive in mid or late May.

The next console update is currently scheduled for April 24 and will pack the contents from the 256 PC patch like the massive Flyer nerf, underwater bases, and UI redesign.

[Featured Image by ARK: Survvial Evolved]

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