Here’s What’s Being Planned for this Year’s Extra Life in ARK: Survival Ascended

Studio Wildcard revealed that there's going to be changes to this year's Extra Life event in ARK: Survival Ascended. While it's still happening, there's going to be no livestream on Game Day.

For those new to ARK: Survival Ascended, Extra Life is an annual fundraising event. It's a time when the community raises funds for the kids in the Children’s Miracle Network. This year though, the development team is working to finish both Valguero Ascended and Lost Colony. In a post, the studio revealed that while they're disappointed that they wouldn't be able to share the experience with everyone this year, they remain "committed to making sure the event is still something to look forward to."

Dino Colors

From October 31 to November 10, the studio is releasing a selection of the community’s favorite dino colors on the official network. In addition, there's going to be a sweet twist rather than the traditional boosted donation rates. For the Extra Life event, players can dig into Cake Slices that give bonuses to:

Taming

Breeding

Imprinting

Harvesting

Dino TLC Pass

The studio also said that for every $30,000 contributed towards the Studio Wildcard Extra Life charity, it unlocks a Dino TLC pass. It breathes new Ascended life into one of ARK’s classic creatures, up to a maximum of 4 creatures delivered throughout 2026.

How it works is that when a player donates, they'll need to include the full name of the creature they want to see receive some love. Each dollar counts as one vote towards that specific creature and the community’s combined support determine which creatures evolve with renewed gameplay and style.

Extra Life

In next week’s crunch, the studio is opening up the Studio Wildcard Extra Life page to start receiving donations. They'll also be explaining the donation/reveal schedule along with any important information that would be necessary to know in order to vote for a Dino TLC.

Then after Game Day, they'll be revealing one winner each week throughout November. Before each reveal, donations continue to be counted. In every Community Crunch during this time, the studio is also sharing the current Top 5 contenders still in the running.

ARK: Survival Ascended offers the ultimate survival experience as it invites players to design their own Survivor, tame dinosaurs, and unravel the true nature of The Island and worlds beyond. There are also quality of life enhancements that include a refreshed user interface, intelligent creature pathfinding, wild babies, new map system, updated tracking system, new structures, creatures, and much more. Get ARK: Survival Ascended on Steam now.