ARK Survival Ascended Giant Bison: Everything we know

Giant Bison will be the exclusive new dino coming to ARK Survival Ascended in April 2025 alongside the Ragnarok expansion. The new free dinos bundled with ASA map releases are decided by community vote, and originally, this was supposed to be Giganotoraptor in the case of Ragnarok. However, after a release schedule reshuffle, Giganotoraptor instead got released as a standalone dino in 2024.

Afterward, Studio Wildcard decided to back Giant Bison as their line-skipper entry for Ragnarok, and here we are.

This will be an entirely new creature that hasn't been featured in ARK Survival Evolved (official or mods), so we don't have much to ride on when it comes to official information. Based on the original forum post from community member TheIronWolf45, here's what we know.

Note: The information presented in this article is subjective and speculative and should be taken with a grain of salt.

---

Possible features of the Giant Bison in ARK Survival Ascended Ragnarok

It has been a while since the community-voted herbivores got added to official ASA maps, so Studio Wildcard has a good incentive to lean into the cattle-centric features of Giant Bison. Specifically, its original post outlines a number of animal products that you can get out of a tamed Bison:

• Keratin: Bison horn should be a no-brainer source of Keratin, which you should be able to harvest from a tamed Bison without harming it. The original creator goes as far as to suggest a mechanic where letting the horn grow out fully lets you get a lot of Keratin but takes away the horn, which nerfs that Bison's Impale attack.
• Bison Milk: Bison Milk can be a natural stimulant to accelerate the growth of baby dinos, consumed by the player for a cold-resistance buff, or processed into Bison Milk Cheese as an additional dairy product.
• Bison Dung: The creator suggested that Bison Dung can be used as a fertilizer that increases the yield of crops.
• Bison Hair is an alternative to pelt.
• Snow-Gatherer: Bison can gather resources like berries even in the snow biome without any bushes.

While these are all expected of a herding animal in ASA, the most unique suggestion in the original Great Bison concept is a Cart-Saddle. There could be various types of Bison-drawn wagons, including:

• Conestoga Wagon - A mobile mini-home that insulates you from weather conditions and can be a great way to move stuff with storage boxes.
• Gatling Gun Wagon aka "Tatanka with a Tachanka" - A cart mounted with a Gatling gun, somewhat inspired by Andrewsarchus' Minigun Saddle in ARK Fjordur.

The Bull-driven cart in ATLAS, the inspiration behind the idea (Image via Grapeshot Games)

Other than this, the combat prowess of Great Bison in ASA would likely be similar to Triceratops, with a Bull-rush (ram/impale) charge maneuver and — if Studio Wildcard really takes an interesting route — a herd-based trample mechanic.

As for the taming mechanic, the Dossier written by the creator suggests sneaking up on a wild Giant Bison to mount it. Afterward, it may buck like a rodeo bull, and this will likely be a minigame similar to taming a Fasolasuchus in ARK Survival Ascended Scorched Earth.

As mentioned earlier, all of this is the original concept work done by a community submission, so the actual Giant Bison we get to see in Ragnarok may turn out differently.

---

Check out our other guides on the game:

• Ark Survival Ascended DLC Roadmap and map release schedule
• All ARK Survival Ascended Traits you can store with Gene Scanner
• Best Ark Survival Ascended tame for every resource
• Ark Survival Ascended: Scorched Earth resource map
• Ark Survival Ascended The Center Resource map
• ARK Survival Ascended Aberration Resource map