Ark: Survival Evolved's dinosaurs get romantic in Valentine's Day event

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Mate boosted range, mating speed, and egg incubation get multipliers, plus you can find chocolates and a new hairstyle.

Breeding dinosaurs in Ark: Survival Evolved can be a long and arduous process, but for Valentine's Day you might have an easier time of it. During this lovey-dovey event, which is now live, your dino mating and breeding will get a bit of a boost. All servers using a '-vday' command line paramater, including official ones, can expect cupid's arrow to deliver the following romantic bonuses:

  • Mate Boosted range increased by 2x
  • Mating Speed and Mating Recovery increased by 3x
  • Creature Maturing and Egg Incubation speed has been increased by 3x
  • Baby Food Consumption has been decreased by 1/3

There's also a 5% chance of dinos dropping a box of chocolates after they mate, which can be consumed either for a full heal or used to advance a dino's taming bar halfway. Plus, players can obtain a new emote and hairstyle, though I don't know if that will increase your chances of mating with another player. I suppose it couldn't hurt.

Note: even after downloading the update, make sure to restart your Steam client. Some players have reported picking up chocolates but not seeing them in their inventory. A Steam restart should fix this. 

Christopher Livingston
Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.