Primal Fear Guide

Primal Fear is one of the largest creature mods for ARK: Survival Evolved. Made by Pikkon and released in January 2017, it fills the map with stronger versions of almost every creature, sorted into tiers from Toxic up to Chaos and Spirit. Each tier is tamed with its own kibble, made from the eggs and blood of the tier below, and a ladder of boss tiers runs alongside, ending in summoned fights for whole tribes. The mod also adds weapons, armor, crafting stations, potions and craftable robot creatures. It suits multiplayer servers that want a long, hard progression. The team says it is not really built for singleplayer, though singleplayer works, at least for a good part of the climb.

Before you start

• Game version: the team's wiki covers ARK: Survival Evolved only. It does not mention ARK: Survival Ascended. The latest patch notes on the wiki are dated June 2025.
• Expansions are separate mods: Scorched Earth (902157012), Aberration (1315573129), Extinction, Genesis (2200048898) and Boss (899987403) each come as their own Workshop item. The first four add that DLC's Primal Fear creatures to maps without those spawners. The Boss Expansion places wild boss creatures on the map you choose and needs the base mod installed. The Noxious Creatures, Dodo and Unofficial Extras add-ons also need Primal Fear.
• Load order: neither the wiki nor the team's spreadsheet gives one. The only firm rule is that every expansion and add-on needs the base mod loaded with it.
• Mods the team suggests: Dino Storage V2 (handy for egg production), Simple Spawners, and Eternal Primal Fear Spawn Compatibility (only if you also run Eternal).
• Your main workbench: almost everything in the mod, from kibble and narcotics to saddles and summoners, is crafted at the Primal Smithy. It unlocks at level 10 and costs 15 Crystal, 45 Hide, 25 Metal Ingot and 150 Stone.

Creature tiers

A Primal Fear creature is a stronger version of a normal species. The tier tells you how much stronger. The table shows the stat multiplier over the vanilla creature, the share of wild spawns, and what each tier is tamed with. Numbers come from the team's spreadsheet and the wiki's Creatures page.

The roles differ as well as the numbers. Apex creatures are meat-eating fighters, and Fabled creatures are passive work animals that gather four times the normal resources. Omegas have an area heal and a breeding system of their own. Celestials are the support tier, and Demonics are the combat mounts. Buffoon (circus escapees) and Elder creatures are there for fun and have no set multiplier. Elders are scaled up in size, can be ridden without a saddle and can be bred.

The order to climb in

The wiki ranks the tamed tiers from weakest to strongest like this: Toxic, Alpha, basic Elemental, Apex, advanced Elemental, Fabled, Omega, Celestial and Demonic, then Chaos and Spirit. Note that Omega comes after Fabled on this list, even though its stat multiplier is lower. Primal Tek, Buffoon, Elder and Corrupted creatures sit outside this ladder.

The team's singleplayer guide sets a level goal for each step, which works as a rough pace on any server:

1. Vanilla, to level 20: build in stone, smelt metal, start a farm with vegetables, Narcoberries and Tintoberries, get a Crossbow, tame five or six egg layers such as the Dodo, Dilophosaur and Oviraptor, and build the Primal Smithy.
2. Toxic, to level 30: tame four or five Toxic creatures for Toxic Eggs. A Toxic Dodo or Toxic Zombie Dodo pair is the usual start. Start looking for an Alpha Pteranodon to tame, and build a wall around the base.
3. Alpha, to level 40: get a full set of Alpha armor, start Cooked Meat Jerky and Prime Meat Jerky, and collect Giant Bee Honey.
4. Basic Elemental, to level 50: tame one of each of the four basic elements. Elemental Featherlights and Griffins are good picks. Start working towards Apex Kibble.
5. Apex, to level 60: Apex fighters such as the Apex Rex or Apex Spinosaur are strong enough to beat vanilla obelisk bosses.
6. Advanced Elemental, to level 70, then Fabled while you work towards level 85.
7. Omega, at level 85: a Primal Sniper Rifle helps from here on.
8. Celestial and Demonic, and finally Chaos and Spirit, which stay locked until you beat a Guardian boss.

Taming

Most Primal Fear creatures are knocked out and fed their tier's kibble. The spreadsheet notes that Aberration creatures in the mod tame the same way as in vanilla, except Reapers and Toxics, and that almost everything else is a knock-out tame. Since February 2022 most Primal Fear creatures can no longer be caught with a net.

The kibble chain

All kibble is made at the Primal Smithy, and each kind needs eggs from the tier before it. Getting the right egg layers going early is the key to the whole mod. Ingredients and unlocks below are from the wiki's Kibble Guide:

Special Kibble opens after Apex Kibble and takes Alpha, Apex and Toxic Eggs plus Apex Blood. It tames the odd ones out: Buffoon and Malin creatures, Necrotic wyverns, the Pegasus, the Elder Phoenix and Rudolph. Elemental Advanced Kibble is optional: you only need it for the Light and Dark elementals. The four feathers (Electric, Fire, Ice and Caustic Feather) come from Elemental Griffins. The wiki's Egg Layers page lists every egg-laying creature by tier.

Taming tools

• Tiered narcotics: Potent Narcotic, Toxic Narcotic, then Alpha, Apex, Primal and Origin Infused Toxic Narcotic, for creatures whose torpor runs off too fast for normal Narcotics.
• Tiered tranquilizer ammo: Potent, Toxic, Alpha, Apex and Primal Tranq Darts, matching Primal Rifle Bullets and Primal Compound Bow arrows, and an Origin tranq arrow. Bring the ammo that fits the tier you are knocking out.
• Tame Helpers: sold in x50, x100, x200 and x500 sizes.
• Primal Stimulant and the Stimulant Dart, for when you need to wake something up.

Tiers and creatures with special rules

• Chaos and Spirit creatures: knock them out and feed one Chaos Orb or Spirit Orb. The spreadsheet warns that one orb is enough and that you should not force-feed it. The orb engrams unlock when you kill the matching Guardian. To craft the orbs you need Celestial Eggs for the Spirit Orb or Demonic Eggs for the Chaos Orb, plus Fabled Eggs and other materials.
• Ascended Celestials, Fallen Demonics and Corrupted creatures cannot be found wild. You make them from your own tames (see below).
• Black Omega: only from breeding Omegas. The wiki gives a 2% chance per egg, while the older spreadsheet says 3%.
• Primal and Origin creatures are bosses and cannot be tamed.
• Ferox: the Alpha and Apex Ferox tame passively with Element, as in vanilla. The Buffoon Ferox takes Special Kibble.
• Elder creatures: these take vanilla-style food, such as meat, fish or berries, and the Elder Phoenix takes Special Kibble.
• Pegasus: tamed with Special Kibble. After 250 kills it can evolve. With a Demonic soul in its inventory it becomes a Fallen Pegasus, and with a Celestial soul it becomes a Divine Pegasus. Server owners can change the kill count.
• Mongo and Monga: since May 2025 they spawn wild in pairs and must be knocked out, as they no longer drop an egg on death. Mongo takes Celestial Kibble. Each one's special attack only works when the other is close.
• Kamikaze Dodo and penguins: the Kamikaze Dodo, Rocket Penguin and Firework Penguin must be knocked out with a single hit. The NukaDodo cannot be tamed and only comes from breeding.
• Tarantula: it tames like a Scorpion and can be ridden. Since June 2025 its bite always gives a bio virus that drains stamina and health until you cure it with a Bio Virus Antidote.
• Bunny: it eats Rock Carrots and berries.

Reaper Kings and Queens

Reapers work differently from vanilla. The only tameable Reapers that spawn on their own are Reaper Queens (Alpha and Apex, plus vanilla-strength Queens with the Aberration Expansion). When a wild Queen targets you, she calls up a Reaper King of the same tier at a random level. He stays for five minutes, and if that time runs out, or he wakes up after being knocked out, he digs into the ground and is gone.

1. Kill Reaper Queens for their Reaper Queen Pheromone Glands and craft Reaper King Stew.
2. Fight a Queen until she summons a King, knock the King out and feed him the stew.
3. The tamed King slowly makes Reaper King Pheromones: one every 1800 seconds for a vanilla-tier King, 1200 for Alpha and 900 for Apex, by default.
4. Turn the pheromones into Crystalized Reaper King Pheromones, which tame the Queen.

Indominus Rex

You cannot knock out a wild Indominus. They spawn in mate-boosted pairs. Bring the female to 10% health or less and hit her again, and she drops a fertilized egg for you to steal and hatch. Taking the egg alerts every Indominus and raptor of any tier for a long way around, so plan your escape first. The Celestial Indominus Emperor is the one exception: it comes from a boss summoner (see below).

Powering up your creatures

Celestial and Demonic power-up

Press Ctrl+C on a Celestial or Demonic to power it up. Demonics can also be powered up from the radial menu. A powered Celestial deals 1.5 times its melee damage, takes 25% less damage and ignores all status effects, but its stamina drains fast until you switch the power off or get down. The Demonic version is weaker on paper: about 120% damage and 15% less damage taken, according to the spreadsheet. However, it slowly heals the creature and sets fire to everything nearby. Wild and tamed Demonics can power up when they attack.

Corruption

Alpha, Apex, Fabled and Celestial creatures can be corrupted, but only species that have a corrupted model in the base game. Put a Corrupted Spore in the creature's inventory and choose Corrupt Dino on the radial menu. The corrupted copy keeps its name and levels and hits harder while taking less damage. The catch is that it needs a corrupted nodule every hour. If an hour passes without one, it goes wild, attacks everything around it and can never be tamed again. Corruption is permanent, and anything left in the inventory, saddle included, is deleted.

Ascension and Descension

Celestials can be ascended with the Ascension Item dropped by Pikkon the Creator. It unlocks an engram, and you put the crafted item in the Celestial's inventory and choose Ascend Dino. The ascended creature starts at the old creature's level, but it does not keep the old wild or tamed stats. A corrupted Celestial cannot be ascended, but an ascended one can still be corrupted, and that is the strongest creature a player can own. Demonics work the same way with the Descension Item from Nova the Destroyer, which turns them into Fallen Demonics. Strip the saddle and inventory first in both cases.

Bosses and summoning

The bosses form their own ladder from Tier 0 to Tier 7. Except for the wild Primals and the mini bosses, the summoners are crafted at the Primal Smithy, and each tier you clear opens the next.

Tier 0: mini bosses

Captain Black Boulder roams wild with parrot minions. Killing him drops his summoner, which calls up a tameable version that you knock out and feed Special Kibble. Artifacto the Great drops one to three artifacts, and the wiki adds that he also drops a summoner for a tameable version.

Tier 1: Primals

Black creatures with a red glow, red mist and their own music. They only spawn in the wild and cannot be tamed. There are Primal versions of the Allosaurus, Carno, Dire Bear, Giganotosaurus, Kentrosaurus, Liopleurodon, Megalodon, Mosasaurus, Plesiosaur, Raptor, Rex, Rock Drake, Spino and Thylacoleo. They drop Primal Blood, Primal souls and Primal costumes. You need Primal Blood for Celestial Kibble.

Tier 2: Origins

Black and yellow, with a yellow glow you can spot at night. There are eight: Argentavis, Carno, Dire Bear, Kairuku, Raptor, Rex, Spino and Wyvern. You can find them wild or call them with Origin summoners. Killing them unlocks vanilla Tek engrams (not the Homestead ones). The spreadsheet adds a 90% chance of a piece of Origin armor, which does not break and protects against heat and cold, plus Origin Blood, a soul, a tribute, a costume and sometimes a Max XP Potion.

Tier 3: Emperor and Empress

The Celestial Indominus Emperor is a huge Indominus that can power up even in the wild. Fight it with Celestials. The Demonic Reaper Empress is a huge Reaper Queen that hides underground, so look for a big heat shimmer above the ground. Fight her with Demonics. Both can turn up in the wild but are rare, and both have Primal Smithy summoners. Each drops a summoner for a tameable version, a chance at armor pieces or the matching sword, and unlocks the Guardian summons: the Emperor unlocks the Chaos Guardian and the Empress the Spirit Guardian.

Tier 4: Guardians

The Chaos Guardian is a lava creature that rules the realm of darkness, and the Spirit Guardian is a pale, ghostly creature with a visible skeleton that rules the realm of light. They can only be summoned and cannot be tamed. Killing one unlocks the Chaos Orb or Spirit Orb engram, and the Guardian may call a tameable Chaos Wyvern or Spirit Wyvern at its own level.

Tier 5: Pikkon the Creator and Nova the Destroyer

Pikkon the Creator is a giant teal and black flying eel. He calls in minions and can force flyers to the ground. He drops a full set of Creator armor and an Ascension Item, and unlocks the Primal Fear Tek saddle engrams. Nova the Destroyer is a Dodo Reaper with Seeker minions. Its area attacks can throw players off the map, and its swarm and purple fire knock Celestials out of power-up. At 15% health it drops a fertilized egg, which hatches into a tamed Nova, and then enrages, dealing 150% damage until it dies. It drops the Descension Item, a Destroyer soul and three Primal Rocket blueprints based on its attacks. Both can only be summoned.

Tier 6: Colossi

There are four: Caustic, Fire, Electric and Ice. They never spawn wild. Each has its own area attack and calls minions of its element. Each one drops its own medallion, a special blueprint, Primal Rockets of its element and other loot. You have to beat all four to move on to the last tier.

Tier 7: Pikkon's Revenge

The biggest boss in the mod. It sends out Attack Drones, has area attacks and is meant for several tribes working together. Summon it in a big open space so it does not despawn or get stuck in the terrain. The reward is the Club Torch of Destruction.

Wandering Loot Boss and the Boss Expansion

A wandering Ferox loot boss comes in six tiers, from Ramshackle through Apprentice, Journeyman, Mastercraft and Ascendant to Godliath. Each tier spawns higher than the last, and Godliath loot leans towards top-tier saddles. The separate Boss Expansion adds wild Broodmother, Dragon, DodoReaper, Dodo Rex, Dodo Wyvern, Manticore and Megapithecus bosses in Vanilla, Alpha, Apex, Chaos, Spirit and Primal tiers. Every tier except Primal can be tamed with Basic, Alpha, Apex, Chaos or Spirit Boss Kibble. The Chaos and Spirit boss kibbles need Boss Essence, Primal Blood, Prime Meat Jerky and the matching orb.

Notable creatures

• Omegas: the Omega Allo, Indom, Reaper, Rex, Sarco, Spino and the four wyverns. They can heal nearby allies instantly, and the June 2025 patches doubled that heal and its range.
• Grifficorn (Fabled): heals the tames around it, which makes it a favourite for boss fights. Since 2025 it heals even without a rider.
• Primal Tek creatures: the Giga, Mosasaurus, Parasaur, Quetzal, Raptor, Rex, Stegosaurus and Trike, built at the Primal Tek Bench like machines. They have 12x stats, no gender, no food, stamina or oxygen, and they cannot be bred, even with S+ mutators. Each holds up to eight modules, such as a shield that blocks 90% of damage until its health runs out. They cause bleed, which now works on bosses too, though bosses take many more hits to bleed out. They are too heavy for most carriers and sink in water. You can craft the lowest level at first. Higher levels need you to kill wild Primal Tek creatures, as with Enforcers.
• Toxic creatures: their secondary attack adds torpor, but it costs a lot of stamina and then eats into the creature's own torpor. Use it too much and your mount passes out.
• Caustic creatures: their secondary attack drops an acid cloud that damages, slows and drains stamina. It also knocks out players unless they wear a Gas Mask.
• Kamikaze Dodo and NukaDodo: explosive Dodos that make beach bases risky. By default they deal 5,500 and 15,000 damage.

Items and consumables

• Blood: Toxic, Alpha, Apex, Fabled, Omega, Primal and Origin Blood. You need blood for kibble, narcotics and health potions, so keep all of it.
• Health potions: as of June 2025 the Healing Stew restores 2% at once, and the Alpha, Apex, Fabled and Primal Health Potions restore 4%, 6%, 8% and 10%.
• XP potions: Small, Medium, Large and Max XP Potion.
• Armor: Alpha and Apex armor sets, then Origin, Celestial, Demonic and Creator armor from bosses. A June 2025 patch raised player armor values for every tier.
• Weapons: the Primal Compound Bow, Primal Sniper Rifle, Primal Shotgun, Primal Pike, Primal Spear and Primal Rocket Launcher. The Celestial Sword calls a Celestial Allosaurus to fight for you while drawn. The Demonic Sword gains damage while drawn, but if you keep it out past its limit (60 seconds by default) it explodes and kills you and everything nearby. Sheathe it to reset.
• Stations: the Primal Smithy, Primal Refining Forge, Primal Industrial Forge, Primal Tek Bench, Primal Tek Forcefield, Primal Turret and Primal Tek Turret.
• Costumes: Origin and Primal bosses drop costumes for their species, from the Origin Rex to the Primal Rock Drake.

Server setup

GameUserSettings.ini

Settings go in GameUserSettings.ini, each under its own header. The expansion settings only work if that expansion is installed. All values shown are defaults. Do not set any value to 0 except ToxicDmgMultiplierTorpAmount, because a 0 makes the setting go back to its default.

The full list, with damage and timing keys for the area attacks, explosives, swords and turrets, is on the wiki's Gus.ini Settings page and the spreadsheet's GUS ini Config tab.

Spawn config

The spreadsheet used to link a spawn config generator by Twisted, but that tool is no longer supported, and the team says you now have to write your own spawn entries in Game.ini. The spreadsheet's Dino Tags tab lists the spawn tag and class of every creature (for example PFAlphaRex and AlphaRex_Character_BP_C). The Noxious Creatures add-on uses vanilla saddles and vanilla taming, and spawns at 0.15 weight and percentage by default.

Engram auto-unlock

The spreadsheet's Engram Auto Unlock tab holds 333 ready-made lines for Game.ini, to paste at the bottom of the file. About 200 of them are saddles. The rest cover kibble, narcotics, tranquilizer ammo, Primal weapons and armor, stations, Primal Tek parts and modules, the Origin summoners and the Emperor and Empress summoners. Each line looks like this:

EngramEntryAutoUnlocks=(EngramClassName="EngramEntry_Saddle_FabledTrike_C",LevelToAutoUnlock=20)

The level in each line is the one the team chose. Edit it to suit your server.

S+ and Super Structures pulling

To let Structures Plus or Super Structures stations and dedicated storage pull Primal Fear items (blood, feathers, souls, narcotics, ammo, kibble, eggs, hides and tributes), open GameUserSettings.ini and add the item paths from the spreadsheet's "S+SS Primal Fear Pulling System" tab to the PullResourceAdditions= line of that mod's config. Then restart the server. The tab links the base S+ and SS config lists to start from.

Admin commands and codes

The spreadsheet has tabs for creature spawn codes, saddle codes, item codes, armor codes and blueprint paths. A few examples:

• Spawn an Alpha Rex: admincheat SpawnDino "Blueprint'/Game/Mods/Primal_Fear/Dinos/Alpha/Alpha_Rex/AlphaRex_Character_BP.AlphaRex_Character_BP'" 500 0 0 35
• Give Alpha Kibble: cheat giveitem "Blueprint'/Game/Mods/Primal_Fear/Resources/Food/Kibbles/PrimalItemConsumable_Kibble_Alpha.PrimalItemConsumable_Kibble_Alpha'" 1 0 0
• Give the Pikkon the Creator summoner: cheat giveitem "Blueprint'/Game/Mods/Primal_Fear/Dinos/Creator_Boss/Items/PrimalItemConsumable_CreatorBoss.PrimalItemConsumable_CreatorBoss'" 1 0 0
• Summon Nova the Destroyer: cheat summon Destroyer_Character_BP_Male_C
• Give a Primal Smithy: cheat giveitem "Blueprint'/Game/Mods/Primal_Fear/Smithy/PrimalItemStructure_PrimalAnvilBench.PrimalItemStructure_PrimalAnvilBench'" 1 0 0

Boss Expansion creatures live under /Game/Mods/Primal_Fear_Bosses/ and Noxious creatures under /Game/Mods/Primal_Fear_Noxious_Creatures/. Their codes are on separate tabs of the same spreadsheet.

Tips

• Breed egg layers before you need them. A mate-boosted pair with an Oviraptor nearby keeps the eggs coming.
• Keep every drop of blood and every feather. You will need them several tiers later.
• Empty the saddle and inventory before you corrupt, ascend or descend a creature, and keep corrupted nodules in stock.
• Bring Celestials to the Emperor and Demonics to the Empress, and expect Nova to cancel your Celestials' power-up.
• Build away from beaches if exploding Dodos worry you, or ask the server owner to turn them off.

Further reading

• Primal Fear Wiki: the team's wiki, with creature pages, the Kibble Guide, boss pages, ini settings and patch notes.
• Primal Fear information spreadsheet: the team's full code lists, ini config, engram unlock list and the S+/SS pulling setup.
• Primal Fear on the Steam Workshop: download, updates and the expansion links.