The festive season is well and truly upon us and Ark: Survival Ascended has launched its seasonal holiday event, Winter Wonderland. The dinosaur-taming game, which is a full remake of its predecessor, Ark: Survival Evolved, has the event running until January 7, so there’s plenty of time to experience the festive game of cat-and-mouse.
Many fans will only just have recovered from the last event, Turkey Trial, and now the Christmas event has landed just in time for all those holiday days between now and January. As expected, there will be various festive-themed skins, holiday outfits and Studio Wildcard even has its take on the green-skinned holiday grump, the Grinch.
Ark: Survival Ascended’s New Winter Wonderland Event Explained
The Pegomastax Grouch is a variant of the common pegomastax which can be seen in the usual spawn points throughout the world. However, this festive character is slightly different, and if players have any presents on them and approach the Grouch, the cheeky character will steal one and sprint off with it at speed.
If players manage to track down the same Grouch, then unlucky for them, it will repeat the feat for a second time. It may seem tedious but if this happens for a third time then players will be rewarded for their efforts, as the troublesome character will give back a bundle of presents. Whilst it may be seen as a fun little mini game, there are still other dinosaurs in the world to contend with.
The event is confirmed to run until January 7, so players have plenty of time to try and search out the Grinch-like character for themselves. As always Raptor Claus is ever prominent and can be seen sailing across the sky dropping all manner of presents to those players below. High-end loot, mistletoe and coal could be any of the gifts that players can obtain.
With the announcement of the festive event from Studio Wildcard, there was an expectation that it would be greatly received by fans. However, judging by comments on social media, this is seen as merely papering over the cracks in underlying issues with the base game.
Can you fix the save problem? I won’t be able to play any events till it’s fixed. Hit or miss when it wants to actually save. –@Tempest2414
still not focused on what matters the most, making the base game stable enough to actually play – @wolfgangpuxx
As always the event mod is broken and sends servers into a restart loop – @ThatBloodySwede
Whilst there are negative comments from some fans, there are those who are excited by the upcoming event and embrace the festive frivolity that it promises to bring to the game. Many of them have just caught their breath from the Turkey Trial event and are ready for the next enjoyable mini-game.
In addition to Raptor Claus and Pegomastax Grouch, there are other Festive characters that players may encounter across the event. Santa’s Big Helper Yeti, The Abominable Snowman and Wild Rideable Reindeer may pop up and the latter can be fed rockarrot and ridden for additional drop amounts. All of these characters drop mistletoe and coal, so it remains to be seen who is naughty or nice.
Those players looking to gain access to the Studio Wildcard Winter Wonderland 2023 event will have to download and install from the mod list if playing from non-dedicated/single-player servers. However, the festive event can also be enabled when playing on private servers, the full steps of which can be found here.
It is always good fun when games introduce a festive twist to their gameplay and this event for Ark: Survival Ascended looks to be no different. However, judging by the comments from fans, it appears that there is a lack of festive cheer and most would prefer that the studio address the issues with the base game first and foremost. Merry Christmas indeed!
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