Days after being vindicated for reusing an Atlas boss in Ark Survival Ascended, its biggest modder is teasing another

Clearly not one to be discouraged by community pushback, renowned Ark Survival Ascended modder ‘Nekatus’ is teasing “one more new creature” for their team’s officially sanctioned Astraeos map pack. What it might be, though, is anyone’s guess.

Just last week, Nekatus spoke about landing in hot water with some of Ark’s louder players. The modder had reused assets from the abandoned game Atlas in a huge update to Ark Survival Ascended’s Astraeos DLC, reviving one of the dead title’s bosses as a fearsome target in one of the biggest survival games out there. 

Nekatus attempted to justify the decision through their lack of experience in that particular area of game development – they’re a modder, not a designer, they argued. Thankfully, their statement went down well, with plenty chiming in to say how there’s nothing wrong with reviving and reusing some assets to ship something new in this context.

Those words of encouragement may also be part of the reason why Nekatus is comfortable teasing that another new monster might arrive soon. “I feel like Astraeos could need one more new creature,” they say in a post on X. That’s it. There’s no image tease, no hint… nothing. When? Who knows. What? Not a clue. How? Well, anything is on the table when you can ethically pilfer it from a dead game, right? 

What do Astraeos fans actually want, though? “A rolypoly” from an undisclosed creature submission period, says one, who admits, “I need that more than anything Ark could ever offer.” The Kraken is another good shout, but given it… sorry, the Palaeoctopus, is set to drop with Ark Ascended’s Genesis Part 1 update later this year, that choice might ruffle some feathers.

A Drake? That would be a twist. A “Cerberus that comes out at a random spawn every third night?” That’s an oddly specific request, but at least you know exactly what you want. It’s all a mystery at the moment, so I guess we’ll just have to wait for the next update. But hey, the best Ark Survival Ascended mods can keep you going until then.