10 Biggest Ark: Survival Ascended Aberration Changes & Differences From ASA (2024)

On the surface, Ark: Survival Ascended's Aberration DLC may not feel massively different from the base game, but it has its fair share of significant changes. Ascended has seen the franchise's Scorched Earth and The Center updates upgraded for the remaster, but change very little. The most notable change, other than new dinosaurs, is the intense heat mechanic brought by the Desert map. However, intense heat tends to be the most disliked feature of the franchise and brings down the overall popularity of Scorched Earth.

Ark: Survival Ascended's Aberration and new content takes players to a damaged ARK that has suffered the consequences of its accident. Radiation has flooded the landscape and forced most life underground. This radiation has also created new hybrid dinosaurs while slightly mutating the others. This DLC was the franchise's move towards science fiction themes while greatly increasing the game's difficulty.

10 The Importance Of Charge Light In Aberration

An Underground Power Source That Replaces Oil

Charge Light is a new system in Aberration and has become crucial for surviving underground. This is because oil is hard to find on this map, meaning using fuel as a power source is difficult. Luckily, players can access Charge Nodes around the map that will fill Charge Batteries for use. These nodes have limits and can shut down temporarily if used too much, though they're enough around the map to avoid any major issues.

Charge Batteries are then used to power the majority of items that need electricity, and while there is a small handful that still needs gasoline, the ability to use Charge Batteries greatly diminishes the need for regular fuel. The other use for Charge Batteries is with the new Charge Lantern weapon. This will fire strong beams of light and severely weaken the toughest dinosaurs in Aberration​​​​​.

9 Aberration's Weird Pregnancy Mechanic

The Only Way To Tame Certain Species

Aberration was the first use of an impregnation mechanic to tame a creature, which was later copied by Rhyniognatha. This weird Reaper mechanic is the only way to tame this creature and has a set of specific steps. Players need to weaken a Reaper Queen to the point of death and then allow her to stab them. This will put a Reaper embryo into the survivor which would then leach half of the experience for the next 12 hours until birth.

While weird, this mechanic is still one of the unique experiences in all of Ark. This process can also be sped up over time and is well worth the effort for arguably the best creature added in Aberration. To some extent, it wouldn't be the worst idea to add more mechanics like this to the game, but not overflowing it to the point of feeling stale.

8 Aberration's New Structures Improve Quality-Of-Life

Tools For Transportation And Taming

Due to the rocky underground landscape that takes up the majority of the map, Aberration needed new structures to help with base building. The most notable additions include wooden elevators of all sizes, which were first introduced in this DLC, and Cliff Platforms. The former allowed survivors to easily and quickly transport goods or dinosaurs up and down areas that would otherwise be impassable. Cliff Platforms work like Tree Platforms, allowing building on them, but are instead placed on cliffsides.

Other smaller structures from Aberration include the Portable Rope Ladder, Gas Collector, and Fish Basket. The rope ladder is self-explanatory as a mobile way to traverse cliffs. Gas Collectors can be placed on gas veins to obtain crafting resources. Lastly, the Fish Basket is used to tame some of the small aquatic creatures added in the DLC.

7 The Differences Of The Aberration Map

Find Flora, Get Rewards And Gather Resources

When compared to the others, Aberration is the second-largest official map in Ark., and is split into four regions and the boss arena. Each region has a small handful of different locations that can be explored. For example, the Fertile Region is the area just below the surface where the light can reach. It is the area of Aberration where players can find the most flora and where the deadliest creatures will avoid spawning or entering.

The other areas of the map, outside the Surface, are even deeper down and carry a larger risk. This includes the Bio-Luminescent and Molten Element regions. Both of which are filled with the best rewards the map has to offer. The Surface is the smallest part of the map but is the only place to get Oil and Supply Drops.

6 Aberration's Unique Environmental Effects

Radiation, Poison, Spore Clouds And More

Even without the dangerous creatures the DLC adds, this map is plenty dangerous. The most obvious is the vast areas filled with radiation that will quickly kill any survivor without Hazard Suits. These suits aren't necessarily weak, but will not have the same defensive capabilities as the best armor in the game. Also, many areas of the map will be filled with poisonous mushrooms or spore clouds that can be sneaky killers.

The surface of Aberration is similar to that of Scorched Earth, with extreme temperatures that aren't suitable for survivors to live on. This is countered by many key resources being easy to find and in ample supply on the surface. Lastly, the entire map can randomly be hit by earthquakes that shake the ground and summon debris. This debris does not do damage and can sometimes have loot. However, falling off a cliff due to an earthquake will do damage.

5 All New Resources Added In Aberration

Charge Batteries, Gas Balls And Element Ore

Aberration does not introduce many new resources, but each one has a crucial role. Two of these are the Charge Batteries and Gas Balls, collected from the Gas Extractor, mentioned earlier. Element Ore and Gems can also be found throughout the underground caves of the map. These resources don't do much in the early or mid-game but are required to craft Tek gear in the late game.

The other notable additions are various mushrooms and dinosaur eggs that can be used for food. However, it should be noted that some of these mushrooms can be poisonous and others are better used as tame food. Besides these, most resources in Aberration are those that Ark players are already used to.

4 All New Weapons, Armor, & Gear Added in Aberration

Some Must Have Items To Explore And Fight

The gear added to Ark in Aberration is tuned to be best on this map, but can be helpful across the game. The Hazard suits previously mentioned along with Climbing Pick will be must-haves for traversing the map. The latter allows players to climb up cliffsides to save time and traverse previously unavailable areas. Other exploration items include zip lines for faster movement and Charge Lanterns for defense and light sources.

The two other weapons added in Aberration are the Tek Railgun and Plant Species Z Fruit. These fruits were the first introduction of these species that were carried on in later DLCs and serve as growable flashbangs. The Tek Railgun is the Tek tier sniper rifle and has some of the highest single-target damage in Ark, but this is balanced out by weaknesses against multiple targets and a long recharge time.

3 The Introduction Of Aberrant Dinosaurs

Mutation Brings A Whole New Set Of Dinos

Due to the intense radiation from the damaged Ark, some prior dinosaurs that lived on it have been turned Aberrant. This status gives them slightly less health, but a sizable damage increase. The easiest way to spot an Aberrant version is if their skin is glowing at night. Luckily, these variants still follow the same rules as before, so the majority will only attack a player if angered.

Aberrant dinosaurs have other factors that dictate their playstyles as well. First, they cannot breed with a non-Aberrant of their species, likely to keep the variants balanced. The other factor is that some are immune to Aberration's radiation, making them great mounts for exploring those hazardous areas.

2 Rockwell Boss Fight & Its Lore Implications

The sole boss fight in Aberration is against a giant mutated Rockwell, one of the main survivors of Ark's story. He becomes this monster after intense overexposure to Element after fleeing from the other survivors thinking he was being betrayed. Rockwell is now using the damaged Ark in hopes of building up an army to completely take over any hospitable planet he can find.

Though the lore reasons are plenty, the Rockwell fight is, unfortunately, rather simple. He has a set of tentacles that attack players and must be damaged to make him vulnerable, but it is rather easy, even without mounts, to quickly burst him down and repeat the process till he dies. The arena will spawn Nameless throughout the fight, but by taking Cactus Broth these creatures will ignore players. Overall, this makes a fight with major story plot points into a rather disappointing outcome.

1 All New Dinosaurs Added In Aberration

Like with many other areas, Aberration does not add many new creatures, but they are some of the best dinosaurs in Ark: Survival Ascended. The most notable two are the Reapers and Rock Drakes. The latter is the best mount for transportation around the underground map, along with the ability to cloak itself. Reapers have some of the highest defense and attack in the game, making them on par as battle mounts with even the notorious Giganotosaurus. Besides Reapers, the other threat in Aberration is the Nameless, which cannot be tamed, but their Venom is needed to raise Rock Drakes.

The Basilisk is a great all-purpose mount to have around, and although it will lose out to those mentioned above, it has impressive attack powers and mobility, while also being able to naturally inflict torpor for taming. The rest of these new dinosaurs serve more niche purposes like pack hunters or free sources of Charged Light, but they are still interesting new additions to explore possibilities with.

Overall, Aberration was a unique addition to a franchise that, before it, largely stayed realistic. These first steps towards Sci-Fi stumble a bit but largely come out with more memorable experiences than failures. This includes the biggest differences and changes from Aberration when compared to the base game of Ark: Survival Ascended.

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Ark: Survival Ascended

ARK: Survival Ascended is a reimagined version of the 2017 action-adventure survival MMORPG by the developers at Studio Wildcard and Grove Street Games. Built in Unreal Engine 5, players will return to ARK to build tribes, fight and tame dinosaurs, and brave the elements as they battle to survive in a unique sandbox where crafting and resource management is essential.

Survival

Open-World

Franchise

ARK

Platform(s)

PC , PS5 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S

Released

October 26, 2023

Developer(s)

Studio Wildcard

Publisher(s)

Studio Wildcard

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

Engine

Unreal Engine 5

ESRB

T For Teen Due To Blood, Crude Humor, Game Experience May Change During Online Play, Use of Alcohol, Violence