‘ARK: Survival Evolved’ Halloween Event Coming To Xbox One, Procedural Maps Need More Time

Xbox One owners of ARK: Survival Evolved received some good news late Saturday evening. Studio Wildcard confirmed the Fear Evolved 2 Halloween event is coming to the console this year, the first special event to hit outside the PC. A patch scheduled for this week will bring the event along with the latest additions to the PC, performance improvements, and a boatload of PrimitivePlus fixes. Unfortunately, Procedurally Generated ARKs will not be ready for the Xbox One yet.

ARK: Survival Evolved update 744.0 is targeting a Friday, October 28 release to the Xbox One and bring Fear Evolved with it. Studio Wilcard announced the event for the PC two weeks ago, but did not confirm it would make its way to the Xbox One. Now it is officially coming with the next patch.

This Halloween-themed event will give players the chance to collect new items, fight a new monster, or even turn into monsters themselves. Players on the Scorched Earth expansion will have the opportunity to face the ferocious DodoWyvern.

Meanwhile, those on The Island and The Center can encounter the DodoRex plus Vampire Bats and Rabid Dire Wolves. Being bit by the former will give you Vampirism while the latter grants Lycanthropy. The benefits are “superhuman sight, speed, strength, and gliding” while a Vampire and morphing into a Werewolf when the moon is out. The downside includes an aversion to sunlight and the need for a supply of blood.

New cosmetic items and costumes were mentioned in the Studio Wildcard announcement as well. However, it is not clear if these are only gained from killing DodoWyverns on Scorched Earth or if they will be available through other methods in vanilla ARK: Survival Evolved.

Additionally, update 744.0 will bring a host of new content over from the latest PC version of ARK: Survival Evolved to the Xbox One. This includes Explorer Notes available in 130 treasure chests scattered across The Island map and Scorched Earth expansion. Discovering these will provide a temporary XP buff for player’s Survivor and the tamed animal they are riding when the chest is opened.

Xbox One players will also finally be able to wield weapons while riding their tamed dinosaurs and beasts. It will take some skill to maneuver the tame and accurately aim at the same time, but the community has often wondered why the gameplay doesn’t match the box art.

On the new dinosaur front, the alligator-like Kaprosuchus brings the phrase “leaping lizards” to life by leaping out of the water to attack unsuspecting prey. There is also the Chalicotherium, capable of digging into the dirt with it large paw to create boulders that it can fling like a mobile catapult. Finally, the Diplocaulus substitutes the functionality of SCUBA gear by allowing Survivors to suck oxygen in from a membrane so they can stay underwater longer.

Those ARK: Survival Evolved players braving the wilds of PrimitivePlus can look forward to a huge list of fixes inbound. Mod creator Ced has turned his focus towards fixes over new features and balance changes. Update 1.3 of the Total Conversion mod was released for the PC Saturday and will be included with the Xbox One patch 744.0. You can read the list of over 40 changes at the official forums.

Xbox One owners will see another set of performance improvements with this ARK: Survival Evolved update. Studio Wildcard is increasing stability with memory improvements while also scratching out another 7 percent improvement in rendering performance.

The addition of Procedurally Generated ARKs will not make it into this update for the Xbox One, however. Lead Developer Jeremy Stieglitz’s patch notes state it will “take a bit longer to prepare for console.” This isn’t particularly surprising as the initial release of the map making feature is experimental. It is missing some biome and features, plus the map generation process runs slow even on well-equipped PCs.

You can check out the full patch notes for the 744.0 update coming to ARK: Survival Evolved on the Xbox One below.

• ARK: Fear Evolved 2 Limited Time Halloween Event!
• All PC content thru v248 (except for Procedurally Generated ARKs, that’s going to take a bit longer to prepare for consoles!)
• Latest Primitive+ additions & enhancements from PC
• Memory savings of approximately ~100MB for increased stability
• Render performance gain of approximately 7% using batching

Here is the PC content from patch 248 that will be included with the Xbox One update.

• You can now wield your weapons when mount-riding certain Dinos.
• New Mechanic: Explorer Notes
• New Dino: Kaprosuchus!
• New Dino: Diplocalus!
• New Dino: Chalicotherium!
• Render batching optimization for ~20% perf in structure-heavy areas
• Tree Platforms now have +70% HP and +50% resistance to explosive damage
• Neuter/Spay option for Tamed Dinos (irreversible!)
• Radial Wheel Menu text size now scales with number of entries (to avoid Diplodocus overload, etc)
• Spectators can now see player-talking moving lips & hear voice chat when in range
• Fixed player collisions onto big dino ragdolls
• Non-Drop-In Supply Crates (Cave/Underwater crates etc) no longer have decreasing Health over time (no longer auto destroy), but they can also not accept Inventory anymore and cannot be used to generate Boss Tribute Portals.

[Featured Image by Studio Wildcard]