How to Change the Difficulty Level on Your ARK Server

Updated 9 June 2026 · By Host Havoc Technical Support Team

The difficulty level on your ARK: Survival Evolved server sets the maximum level of wild creatures, controlled mainly by OverrideOfficialDifficulty in the command line. The effective value follows the formula DifficultyOffset * (Official Difficulty - 0.5) + 0.5. After changing it, clear the existing wild creatures with an admin command so new ones spawn at the new levels.

Set the difficulty

  1. Log into the game panel and open the Command Line Manager. Select a command line if you have not already.
  2. Click Selected on your command line and find the Override Official Difficulty line.
  3. Set OverrideOfficialDifficulty to your max desired level divided by 30. For a max level of 300, set it to 10 (300 / 30 = 10). The value can be 1.0 to 10.0.
  4. Save and restart.
    Example OverrideOfficialDifficulty values and their resulting maximum wild creature levels

Note: The difficulty offset is separate and lives in GameUserSettings.ini. Most servers only need to set OverrideOfficialDifficulty.

Clear wild dinos

New levels only apply to newly spawned creatures, so clear the current ones:

  1. Make sure you are an admin, covered in how to add admins.
  2. In the console or over RCON, run DestroyWildDinos.
  3. Wild creatures respawn within the new level range.