# ARK: Survival Ascended Community Crunch 493: It's Mate Boosting Season!

- Product: ARK: Survival Ascended (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/ark-survival-ascended)
- Vendor: Studio Wildcard
- Date: 2026-02-07
- Original notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2399830/view/490464385050869765
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/ark-survival-ascended/releases/2026-02-07-community-crunch-493-it-s-mate-boosting-season

What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.

Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.

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- **added** — Love Ascended event runs from February 11 to February 18, 2026 on Official Servers with increased harvesting, taming, experience, and breeding rates
- **added** — New creature variants including Lovebirds, Love Bugs, Vday Coel, Chibi-Lovebird, and Chibi Pair-o-Saurs
- **added** — New weapons and tools including Succubus Whip, Bouquet Club, Valentine's Fishing Rod, and Heart-Balloon parachute
- **added** — New cosmetic items including Devil Horns helm, Devil Tail accessory, Dashing Rogue Shirt, and various love-themed furniture and decorations
- **added** — New emote Check Yourself
- **changed** — Box o' Chocolates now also reduces mating cooldown by 20% of current time remaining
- **fixed** — Fixed a significant exploit affecting the Official Network
- **fixed** — Patched out several unintended building spots (ratholes) on Ragnarok launching February 25th with the Astraeos expansion
- **changed** — Valguero servers returning to standard 70-player population cap from temporary 100-player cap
- **changed** — Moving a small number of Official servers as part of backend preparations for the Astraeos expansion, primarily affecting PvE Astraeos servers

Something feels different out in the wild. Creatures are pairing up, breeding lines are getting attention, and Survivors may want to clear some space in their bases. With Valentine’s Day approaching, Love Ascended is right around the corner!

[Download in full resolution](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1g6HZycgIFO9ONQBzFUTuqzfp4rFfyNF8?usp=drive_link)

Can you feel the love in the air? Love Ascended is set to sweep ARK survivors off their feet with an array of enchanting new treats and delights. This love-filled event, celebrating Valentine's Day, kicks off on **Wednesday, February 11, 2026**, and will continue to spread joy and affection until **Wednesday, February 18, 2026**, on Official Servers.

- Starts on Wednesday, February 11, 2026

- Ends on Wednesday, February 18, 2026

- **PVP/PVE: **2x Harvesting, Taming, and Experience, and Breeding

- **Small Tribes: **4.5x Harvesting, Taming, and Experience + 4x Breeding

- **ARKpocalypse:** 5x Harvesting, Taming and Experience, and Breeding

- Lovebirds

- Love Bugs

- Vday Coel

- Chibi-Lovebird

- Chibi Pair-o-Saurs

- Valentine’s Fishing Rod

- Love Bug Hearts

- Festive Dino Candy

- Box o' Chocolates (Now also reduce mating cooldown by 20% of current time remaining)

- Succubus Whip ***new***

- Bouquet Club (Club) ***new***

- Devil Horns (Helm) ***new***

- Devil Tail (Accessory) ***new***

- Dashing Rogue Shirt (Chestpiece) ***new***

- Heart-Balloon (Parachute) ***new***

- Lovely Lamp (Omnilamp) ***new***

- Lovely Footrest (SmallStorageBox)** *new***

- Lovely Armoire (LargeStorageBox) ***new***

- Lovely Table (Table) ***new***

- Lovely Rug (Rug) ***new***

- Lovely Lounger (Bench) ***new***

- Lovely Mirror (Mirror) ***new***

- Rosebush (PlantSpeciesX) ***new***

- Lovely Pillow ***new***

- Lovely Balloon ***new***

- Lovely Petals ***new***

- Lovely Bouquet ***new***

- Lovely Chandelier ***new***

- Pillow-Club Skin

- Loveseat

- Ottoman

- Love-Chair

- Pajama Top

- Pajama Bottoms

- SleepingHat

- PomPom Slippers

- Friendship Bracelets

- Bear Hug Swimsuit

- Odd Couple Swimsuit

- Sauropod Heart Swimsuit

- Cupid Couture Bottom Skin

- Cupid Couture Top Skin

- Halo Headband Skin

- Heart-shaped Sunglasses Skin

- Heart Spring Hat

- Cuddle Rex Sweater

- Bow & Eros Skin

- Heart-shaped Shield Skin

- Teddy Bear Grenade Skin

- Love Shackles Skin

- Heart Spring Hat

- Cuddle Rex Sweater

- Love-Bed

- Check Yourself ***new***

- Proposal Emote

- Lasso Emote

- Flirty Emote

- Heart Emote

- Self Hug Emote

- Dino Light Blue

- WyvernBlue0

- PowderBlue

- Glacial

- DarkLavender

- MediumLavender

- Lavender

- DarkViolet

- Dino Light Purple

- LightPink

- Magenta

- DeepPink

- Red

- DarkMagenta

- Dino Albino

- Cream

- Jade

- LeafGreen

- From the Main Menu, select the mod tab.

- Search for Love Ascended in the ARK Mod list and Install it.

**Mod ID: 927084**

- After it's installed, go back to your game setup screen and select 'Mod Settings'

- You will see Love Ascended and any other mods you've downloaded in 'Available Mods'

- Select Love Ascended and activate it.

- If you would like to enable Love Ascended on your private servers, please add the mod ID to your server command-line launch arguments **-mods=927084**. No other changes should be necessary to activate the event.

**Official Network Tribe Wipes**

Earlier this week, our enforcement team identified a significant exploit affecting the Official Network. This exploit has now been fixed.

Following our investigation, action is being taken today against approximately 100 tribes that were found to be abusing this method at scale. These tribes are being wiped from the Official Network.
The Official Network is intended to be a fair and competitive environment for everyone. Exploit abuse that creates a severe and unfair advantage undermines that experience, and we will continue to act decisively when identified.

As a reminder, all players on Official Servers are expected to adh

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