Artifacts

Artifacts are special items in ARK that are generally located in caves around the ARK. Most are found at the end of a cave system, while some are placed more obscurely - including in oceans. Their only use is to summon the bosses. They can also be placed on  Artifact Pedestal for decorative purposes. In Island caves, artifacts emit a wide-radius pulsating light-distortion that can help notify players when they are nearing/entering an artifact's chamber.

Artifacts

There are 21 Artifacts in the game, but not all of them are available on every map. 10 of the Artifacts are available on The Island, The Center, Ragnarok, and Valguero. The Center and Ragnarok both have one additional Artifact (for a total of 11). Scorched Earth, Aberration, and Extinction each have 3 Artifacts exclusive to those maps (and do not have any of the other Artifacts). Crystal isles has all of the artifacts from The Island, The Center, Ragnarok, and Valguero, with the artifacts from Scorched Earth and Aberration and one additional artifact that was previously unused for a total of 18. Artifacts can be freely transferred between maps on clusters (with the exception of Artifact of the Lost).

• 
  Brute
• 
  Chaos
• 
  Clever
• 
  Crag
• 
  Cunning
• 
  Depths
• 
  Destroyer
• 
  Devious
• 
  Devourer
• 
  Gatekeeper
• 
  Growth
• 
  Hunter
• 
  Immune
• 
  Lost
• 
  Massive
• 
  Pack
• 
  Shadows
• 
  Skylord
• 
  Stalker
• 
  Strong
• 
  Void

Removed Artifacts

These Artifacts used to be in the game but were removed from the game files.

Flamekeeper

Table of Artifacts

	The Island	Scorched Earth	The Center	Aberration	Ragnarok	Extinction	Valguero	Crystal Isles	Lost Island	Fjordur
Brute	✓		✓		✓		✓	✓	✓	✓
Chaos						✓
Clever	✓		✓		✓			✓	✓	✓
Crag		✓					✓	✓
Cunning	✓		✓		✓		✓	✓	✓	✓
Depths				✓				✓
Destroyer		✓					✓	✓
Devious			✓		✓			✓
Devourer	✓		✓		✓		✓	✓	✓	✓
Gatekeeper		✓					✓	✓
Growth						✓
Hunter	✓		✓		✓			✓	✓	✓
Immune	✓		✓		✓		✓	✓	✓	✓
Lost								✓
Massive	✓		✓		✓			✓	✓	✓
Pack	✓		✓		✓		✓	✓	✓	✓
Shadows				✓				✓
Skylord	✓		✓		✓		✓	✓	✓	✓
Stalker				✓				✓
Strong	✓		✓		✓		✓	✓	✓	✓
Void						✓

Achievement

Artifact Archaeologist Personally retrieved all the Artifacts.

• Personally retrieving all of the obtainable artifacts from The Island will award the "Artifact Archaeologist" achievement.

Notes

• Artifacts are used to summon boss monsters at the Obelisks or placed on a  Artifact Pedestal for decoration.
  • More than one kind of artifact (Excluding Tek Cave) is required to start any of the bosses on most of the maps. However, Extinction boss only require one of such artifact (which is spawned at the same location as where the terminal would be) along with other tributes to summon them.
• V254.0 changed that only humans can carry artifacts. But the  Otter (introduced in v267.0) can also hold artifacts, even multiple of the same type.
• In Singleplayer, artifacts are set to respawn after 30 minutes (since v260.0). It is also possible that it is not at its expected place when teleporting using setplayerpos command to its coordinates or the player conquered the cave too fast. It might appear after a while waiting in that area.

Changelog

Patch	Changes
324.16	Made some tweaks to the Artifact system in single-player to resolve some scenarios where some artifacts (such as Skylord) would spawn/respawn unreliably.