When Does Bob Tall Tales DLC Release In ARK Survival Ascended?

With the release of the Scorched Earth DLC in ARK Survival Ascended and a plethora of forthcoming DLCs and content updates, excitement brews within the ARK community. A notable addition is the recent reveal of Bob's Tall Tales, though the developers' explanation, or lack thereof may leave much to be desired in terms of what Bob's Tall Tales are.

Fear not, as this guide aims to clarify. Below, we'll elucidate everything known about Bob's Tall Tales in ARK Survival Ascended, unraveling its nature, mechanics, and the benefits it offers players navigating the new content.

When Will Bob's Tall Tales Release?

The ARK Community Crunch blog post on 22 March added a bit of extra info about Bob's Tall Tales since there was 'confusion in the community'.

The blog reads: 

"Think of 'Bob's Tall Tales' as the fun bonus chapters to the main story. The dates on the store page are rough timeframes for those wild Bob-centric adventures, not release dates for the main expansion content they tie into. Think of the expansions like the main course, and Bob's Tall Tales as the extra-spicy side dish... As development progresses, we'll be able to give better estimations for the rest of Bob's Tall Tales."

The dates the blog post seems to be referring to as the ones displayed on the steam page listing, which lists the following release dates:

• Frontier Showdown - Tied to the ARK Scorched Earth DLC - (AVAILABLE AT LAUNCH!)
• Steampunk Ascent - Tied to the ARK Aberration DLC - (Q4 2024)
• Wasteland War - Tied to the ARK Extinction DLC - (Q1 2025)

ARK Survival Ascended Bobs Tall Tales Explained

In a recent community crunch post by the developers, it was announced that Bob's Tall Tales would be coming to the game quite soon, but details were left fairly vague. Based on the post, it's been confirmed that "the legendary ARK veteran Bob - voiced by Karl Urban - is ready to share his incredibly true adventures with you for the first time!"

It goes on to state that players will "Piece together Bob's larger-than-life ARK saga by recovering his animated Explorer Notes! You’ll feel like you were right there with Bob from the beginning, as he describes his pivotal role in ARK’s history to young Meeka - voiced by Auliʻi Cravalho." It's also interesting to note that Meeka is the young girl featured in ARK 2, the daughter of Santiago played by Vin Diesel.

But that's all that we know so far, and the rest of the information we'll have to speculate on until further information is given to us. One aspect we want to speculate on is how Bob's Tall Tales will be told to the player throughout the game and more notably its DLCs.

Firstly, when looking at the announcement media image shared by the devs, we see our ARK characters placed against a background of three of the game's DLCs, the upcoming Scorched Earth, Extinction, and Aberration. This leads us to believe that it's likely Bob's Tall Tales will begin being drip-fed to players throughout all these DLCs starting with Scorched Earth.

We suspect that players will be able to find Bob's Tall Tales throughout the world of the DLC you're in (and possibly the base game, but that's uncertain) similar to finding Explorer notes. Once found, they will likely play a cinematic or audio clip featuring Bob telling Meeka more about the world and his history within it.

Bob's Tall Tales will likely extend to other DLCs as well such as Genesis and possibly the community-made DLCs like Fjördur or Ragnarok, but that's less likely in our opinion. Then we move on to the unique items we see in the poster, specifically the Mad-Max-looking buggy, a single-person rigid airship, and the skins that the characters are wearing.

These items look unique and will likely be added throughout the various DLCs, but even more specifically, they could be rewards for finding one or more of Bob's Tall Tales in the world. But for more details on that, we'll just have to wait and see.

Ultimately, while this new information does drum up quite a bit of hype for the upcoming DLCs for ARK Survival Ascended, the vague nature of the information leaves much to be desired, and many players are keen to know more. And we're right there with you, so be sure to check back here frequently as we'll be covering all the latest ARK Survival Ascended news including updates on Bob's Tall Tales.