How to find and tame Shastasaurus in ARK Survival Ascended

The Shastasaurus is the brand-new ARK Survival Ascended creature introduced with The Center's release, and many players are eager to tame one. It is a passive tame that requires you to engage its own minigame, which can be quite tricky and unintuitive if you haven't done it before.

If you are feeling lost on how to proceed with taming it, we are here to help. In this guide, we will go over the tried-and-tested taming strategy to obtain a Shastasaurus in ARK Survival Ascended and other important things you should know.

The second community-voted creature to make it into the new ARK game, the Shastasaurus is a powerful underwater tame with a submarine saddle you can build a base inside.

Shastasaurus Spawn locations in ARK Survival Ascended: Where can you find one?

The Shasta is not difficult to find on The Center (Image via Studio Wildcard)

Due to its massive size, the Shastasaurus are not particularly difficult to spot in ARK Survival Ascended. These creatures spawn in deep water, and on The Center map, we spotted several while circling the area south of the Blue Obelisk.

It is recommended you bring a flying tame with you to speed up the process, as you can often locate them through the water. Once you come near one, the Shastasaurus will often do their signature whale flop, leaping out of the water to announce their presence.

ARK Survival Ascended Shastasaurus taming guide

Everything you need to tame a Shastasaurus

As mentioned earlier, these massive sea creatures are a passive tame - damaging them will not be of any use. The Shastasaurus taming process instead relies on a unique leech-clearing mechanic. Here's everything you need for the taming process:

Tame some Ichythosaurus - four of them to be precise. Ride the one with the best stats, and set the other three on the 'follow' command.
Get a Metal Sickle. To craft one, you need 18x Metal Ingots, 4x Woods, and 16x Hides.
Craft some Superior Kibble. One Supperior Kibble requires a Special Egg, 5x Fiber, 1x Giant Bee Honey, 1x Lazarus Chowder, and 10x Mejoberries.
Finally, craft a Shastasaurus Saddle. This is not a hard requirement to tame a Shastasaurus, but this whale is not nearly as useful without the saddle.

Shastasaurus taming method: Step-by-step guide

Taming this creature involves a leech-killing minigame (Image via Studio Wildcard)

Once you have all of these things at your disposal, here are the steps you must follow to tame a Shastasaurus in Ark Survival Ascended:

Before you proceed, try to eliminate all hostile sea creatures nearby, as they can disrupt the whole taming process.
The Shastasaursus will be 'distracted' by the Ichthyosaurus herd, and follow the one you are riding. Bring the creature to the surface of the ocean.
Once it is on the surface, a minigame will commence, marking a few Leeches tugging at the Shatsaurus' belly. You must dive into the water to scrape these out with the Scythe.
Once you have cleared out the Leeches, feed the creature some Kibble to advance the taming meter.
Another round of leeches will soon appear that you must clear. Rinse and repeat the process until the taming meter reaches full, and you will have tamed the creature.

After you tame a Shastasaurus in ARK Survival Ascended, you also need to equip it with a saddle to unlock its full potential. Read along to find out which abilities this will unlock.

How to craft Shastasaurus Saddle?

Shastasaurus' saddles are very important to get everything out of it (Image via Studio Widlcard)

Shastasaurus' saddle unlocks a full-fledged mini-submarine tethered to the beast. There is room for some base-building in this submarine, and you can also use it to garrison dinos like the Therizinosaur. Here's what you need to craft the saddle:

200x Cementing Paste
150x Electronics
250x Silica Pearls
350x Crystal
1500x Metal

Note that the Shasta saddle recipe only unlocks at lvl 100.

ARK Survival Ascended: All Shatsaurus abilities

The Sonar can mark all nearby creatures (Image via Studio Wildcard)

The Shastasaurus comes with two basic melee attacks - a bite attack for assailants ahead of it, and a tail slam for targets flanking it from the back. However, once a Shastasaurus is tamed and saddled up, you can access some rather high-tech tools to play with.

You can cycle through the following abilities with Ctrl + LMB/RMB (default PC keybinds). The following are the abilities of a saddle-equipped Shastasaurus in ARK Survival Ascended:

Flashbang: Blinds creatures in a frontal cone.
Sonar: Marks all underwater lifeforms in a large area.
Periscope: Can be used for clear vision underwater, or for looking over water without surfacing. Comes with various zoom levels.
Torpedo: Shoot a long-range projectile that deals high damage. For balancing purposes, firing a Torpedo requires Rocket ammunition.
Pulse: Knocks back all creatures in range, also dealing a token amount of damage.

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Edited by Rachel Syiemlieh