Tek Cave (2024)

This article is about content exclusively available in the version on Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Epic Games, Stadia.

This page may contain spoilers related to the background-story of ARK: Survival Evolved. If you want to experience the story ingame, you probably shouldn't continue reading on this page.

The Tek Cave is a cave located at the summit of the volcano, and upon completing said cave, the player will teleport to the Hall of History, which leads you to the game's final boss.

Note that the Cave entrance only opens for 5 minutes, so bring in your tames in time. After that, you have 60 minutes to complete the cave and start the boss fight. This includes that you must have passed the entire Hall of History. Everything that stays in the Hall of History after the timer has expired dies. If you try to teleport into the Hall of History via cheat commands, you die if the boss fight has already started (or is still in progress).

Tribute Requirements[]

The following items are needed to open the Tek Cave entrance. These items are not consumed in the process:

Item Required	Gamma	Beta	Alpha
Player Level	60	80	100
Gamma Broodmother Trophy	1
Gamma Megapithecus Trophy	1
Gamma Dragon Trophy	1
Beta Broodmother Trophy		1
Beta Megapithecus Trophy		1
Beta Dragon Trophy		1
Alpha Broodmother Trophy			1
Alpha Megapithecus Trophy			1
Alpha Dragon Trophy			1
Alpha Raptor Claw		1	1
Alpha Carnotaurus Arm		1	1
Alpha Tyrannosaur Tooth		1	1
Alpha Megalodon Fin			1
Alpha Mosasaur Tooth			1
Alpha Tusoteuthis Eye			1
Alpha Leedsichthys Blubber			1

It is worth noting that the greater difficulty trophies can be used to open the Tek Cave entrance at lower difficulties (i.e. the Alpha Broodmother, Megapithecus and Dragon trophies can open the Tek Cave at Gamma difficulty).

Tribute Spawn Commands[]

Uses these commands to give yourself all the items needed for tribute:

Recommended Equipment[]

• This is the hottest and the coldest place you can find on The Island. Ghillie Armor is crucial to deal with the unbelievable heat in Tek Cave. Then the temperature will turn upside-down after you pass the border dividing the cave from the terminal, requiring player to change to Fur Armor. It's highly-advised to use charged Tek Armor to deal with both extreme environments.
  • You will want to bring some Calien Soup and Fria Curry along with reserves of water and food, as well as Medical Brew: If you are burning or freezing, your natural health regeneration is suspended.
• You will need a lot of powerful weapons. It is best to use ascendant quality gear, such as a Tek Rifle, Tek Grenade, or any other weaponry.
• Bring any kind of ranged weapons (even a Primitive Crossbow is fine) to aggro lots of wild animals in the cave and make them fall in the lava pits. It makes the cave much easier, especially if you can send the Giga in the lava. Gigas, however, do not spawn on Gamma difficulty. There will still be a Giga guarding the entrance to the terminal area.
• Bringing sacrificial tames such as Carbonemys is a good idea to send them into the lava once you have shot it with a Pheromone Dart using a Longneck Rifle, drawing wild Dinos with it.
• Lesser Antidote will work fine if you get Mega Rabies from Megalania.
• It is completely possible to do the entire cave in around 35 mins with a set of Ghillie Armor and using some Cactus Broth, Where you just crawl through the cave and get zero aggro and no chance of losing tames; however, you cannot ascend unless the final boss is beaten (introduced in patch 267.0).

Dangers[]

• Lava pits. Your unridden animals can easily fall into the lava from the narrow bridges, especially when they are on neutral and fighting the wild dinos. Because of this, it is recommended to bring more players rather than bringing in unridden dinos.
• Getting knocked off your mount.
• Massive swarms of high level dinos.
• The Giganotosaurus guarding the entrance to the portal.
• Extreme heat and chill: 60℃ in Tek Cave, -28℃ at the terminal, Hall of History, and Overseer Arena. It will burn/freeze players if they do not have corresponding gears equipped.
• The lava in the caldera in front of the gate (before entering the cave) hurts a lot, so make sure your Rexes don't step into it. Make sure you bring enough raw meat in case one of your Rexes misstep to be able to forcefeed them to max health if lava burned them.
• Lava does 200 damage if you or your Creatures step into it
• Both riders & following dinos can be stuck in the cave's geometry. For this reason, ensure that there is adequate distance between players & that each player carries a small subset of unridden dinos behind them, similar to a conga line.

Strategy[]

• It is highly advised to make all Dinos follow each other, similar to a conga line or the way ants follow each other and make their follow distance low as they might tighten the knot and fall. More players mean shorter chains of your tames if you like to.
• Use an extra group to clear the way for the overseer fighters.
• Bring an Otter since it provides insulation which is perfect for the temperature difference.
• A Yutyrannus can scare the Purlovias out of their burrows.
• a Daeodon to heal your tames is suggested.
• Megalosaurs are suggested as they are stronger than Rexes and Therizinos but have a sleep timer.
• The Tek Helmet can show burrowed purlovias - even though they don‘t attack players on big mounts like Rexes or a Yutyrannus until attacked, changing your mount during their presence turns fatal quickly. Their jump can stun when dismounted.
• If you bring creatures that are affected by a Yutyrannus fear roar, prioritize killing any Yutyrannus in the cave.If they roar they can make the smaller creatures scared and run away into lava.

If you have access to the Genesis DLC, the high quality saddles that can be gained from missions will prove useful for getting through this cave.

Creatures[]

• Allosaurus
• Alpha Carnotaurus
• Alpha Raptor
• Alpha T-Rex
• Argentavis
• Arthropluera
• Baryonyx
• Carnotaurus
• Carcharodontosaurus
• Compy
• Daeodon
• Dilophosaur
• Dimetrodon
• Direwolf
• Giganotosaurus
• Kaprosuchus
• Megalania
• Megalosaurus
• Microraptor
• Pulmonoscorpius
• Purlovia
• Raptor
• Rex
• Sabertooth
• Spino
• Tek Raptor
• Tek Rex
• Terror Bird
• Therizinosaur
• Thylacoleo
• Titanoboa
• Yutyrannus

All creatures found in Tek Cave spawn above level 300 (with the exception of Giganotosaurus, which spawns at level 600, but can't be tamed), rendering them impossible to tame.

Compatible Tamed Creatures[]

This table is incomplete.
You can help us by adding the tamed creatures you know can enter the cave. If the creature can't enter, please exclude it.

Accessibility Ratings:

• Excellent: Full-Cave Access (Entrance-to-Artifact)
• Limited: Can Access Portions of the Cave Safely
• Not Recommended: Can Get Stuck/Unable to Leave Cave

Creature	Accessibility	Rideable	Notes
Allosaurus	Excellent	Yes	A pack of 4 minimum
Arthropluera	Excellent	Yes
Baryonyx	Excellent	Yes
Beelzebufo	Excellent	Yes
Carbonemys	Excellent	Yes
Carno	Excellent	Yes
Castoroides	Excellent	Yes	Can be used to repair armor and weapons.
Chalicotherium	Excellent	Yes
Compy	Excellent	No	Can keep on shoulder or bring a whole pack.
Daeodon	Excellent	Yes	Can heal your creatures.
Dimorphodon	Excellent	No	Can keep on shoulder or bring a whole flock. Cannotbe warped into Overseer boss fight
Dilophosaur	Excellent	No
Diplodocus	Excellent	Yes
Dire Bear	Excellent	Yes
Direwolf	Excellent	Yes
Doedicurus	Excellent	Yes
Enforcer	Limited	Yes	Cannotbe warped into Overseer boss fight
Featherlight	Limited	No	Cannotbe warped into Overseer boss fight
Gigantopithecus	Excellent	Yes
Griffin	Excellent	Unofficial/ Single-Player
Hesperornis	Excellent	No	Can be carried on shoulder.
Hyaenodon	Excellent	No
Ichthyornis	Excellent	No	Can be carried on shoulder.
Iguanodon	Excellent	Yes
Kaprosuchus	Excellent	Yes
Megalania	Limited	Yes	Cannotbe warped into Overseer boss fight
Megalosaurus	Excellent	Yes
Megatherium	Excellent	Yes
Microraptor	Excellent	No	Can keep on shoulder or bring a whole flock.
Onyc	Excellent	No
Pachyrhinosaurus	Excellent	Yes
Procoptodon	Excellent	Yes
Purlovia	Excellent	No
Raptor	Excellent	Yes
Ravager	Excellent	Yes
Rex	Excellent	Yes
Rock Drake	Limited	Yes	Cannot be warped into Overseer boss fight
Sabertooth	Excellent	Yes
Sarco	Excellent	Yes
Scorpion	Excellent	Yes
Spider	Excellent	Yes
Terror Bird	Excellent	Yes
Therizinosaur	Excellent	Yes
Thorny Dragon	Excellent	Yes
Thylacoleo	Limited	Yes	Cannotbe warped into Overseer boss fight
Triceratops	Excellent	Yes
Troodon	Excellent	No
Yutyrannus	Excellent	Yes

Restrictions[]

Due to the opening size of the Tek Cave entrance upon opening, only certain size of the dino or creatures can fit into the cave.

Once the cave is sealed, no creature will be able to leave the cave until the Overseer in its arena is defeated. Any creature still alive in the arena will be transported to the entrance of the Tek Cave.

The following creatures are too big to fit into the cave entrance and will not be able to enter by any means:

• Astrocetus
• Brontosaurus
• Giganotosaurus
• Magmasaur
• Megachelon
• Reaper
• Rock Elemental
• Spinosaurus
• Titanosaur
• Titans
• Wyvern

The following creatures cannot be warped into Overseer boss fight, but can enter the Tek Cave:

• Dimorphodon
• Enforcer
• Featherlight
• Megalania
• Rock Drake
• Thylacoleo

Notes[]

• Once the gate is opened, players must wait until it is closed to select another difficulty, regardless there are players inside the cave or not.
• If the player dies out or use ghost command to get out, reopening the gate will eliminate all tamed creatures still inside the cave.
• Upon Ascending, you will have to select your character and respawn as if you had disconnected while traveling across servers. This also means that items will be kept, but the Element will be lost and all the Tek Gear will be discharged. Creature inventories share the same behavior, but it might be safer (due to bugs) to store valuable equipment there, specially if playing console versions.
• There is a bug where if you bring a shoulder pet and you ascend with it on your shoulder, it won't spawn at the entrance of the cave until you beat the cave again.
• You will need to be level 60, 80, or 100 to open the door corresponding to each difficulty level.
• It is impossible to send a buried Reaper King or Basilisk into the Tek Cave from the entrance; they will only move to the top of the gate and not inside when whipped towards the open gate. However, the Basilisk can enter the cave without problems when out of the ground.
• When inside the cave itself, you are not able to use the Jetpack on the Tek Chestpiece, the Grappling Hook, or even the Climbing Pick. Moreover, the jump function from Managarmr cannot be used as well. After teleporting to the Hall of History, however, the jetpack and the ability to jump with the Managarmr will now be available for the rest of the journey, including the Overseer encounter.
• This is the only boss arena to permit Tek Tier equipment. Every other Boss Arena disallows such thing, excluding Rockwell Arena and Extinction arenas.
• When using the ghost cheat to get into the Tek Cave, the Overseer will be at Gamma level, and no Creatures will spawn inside the cave.
• Although upon entering a cave there is a message saying that a max of 10 riders and 50 tames are allowed in the cave, It is possible to bring more players. The portal after the tek cave will allow a max of 10 players (with their dinos) + 10 unridden dinos per teleport and as long as the overseer boss is not initiated, another batch can port in.
• There is a bug which can cause the game to crash during the final ascension cinematic. For this reason, once the overseer is defeated and you have placed yourself in the correct platform, make sure to dismount.
• There is a bug at the gate. If players keep running towards the gate while riding a dino(especially some animals with mounting seat far beyond their collision-box), they can get stuck inside the gate and take 9,600 true damage, which is a insta-kill with no corpse left over—all the items carried by the player will be lost forever.
• An EXTREMELY rare bug is when the creatures from the front of the cave glitch on to the surface and CAN be tamed this is very use for megalosaurs as they have no sleep timer and can be bred if it happens again but this bug is a little too rare to do twice.
• Another bug is when all the creatures fall out of the mesh and out of the world and for some odd reason megalosaurs don't fall out.
• Kapros fall through the ground very often.
• Cryopods cannot be used inside any boss arena, or inside or near the Tek Cave.
• Cryopods are usable on official PVE. You can throw gigas out of cryopods at cave entrance. There is a ledge just before the entrance to the cold zone. You can uncryopod your army on top of that ledge, but not after it.

Repairing[]

Servers that have lost their interactive Tek Cave entrance terminal can spawn it back in with this command while looking at the terminal:

cheat spawnactor "Blueprint'/Game/PrimalEarth/Structures/TributeTerminal_TekCave.TributeTerminal_TekCave'" 160 0 0

Version history[]

• First released in v257.0.

Gallery[]

• 

  Entrance of the Tek Cave, shown in the teaser.

• 

  Inside of the Tek Cave.

• 

  TEK Boss Entrance

• 

  Hall of History

v · d · eLocations
Displayed are the locations for The Island. For locations found in DLCs, please see The Center, Scorched Earth, Ragnarok, Aberration, Extinction, Valguero, Genesis: Part 1, Crystal Isles, Genesis: Part 2, or Lost Island.
Maps	Resource Map • Explorer Map • Creature Spawn Map
Plains	The Eastern Plains • The Frigid Plains • The Western Plains
Islands	Cragg's Island • Southern Islets • South Haven • The Dead Island • The Footpaw
Mountains	Far's Peak • The Frozen Tooth • The Grand Hills • The Red Peak • Volcano • Weathertop • Whitesky Peak • Winter's Mouth
Beaches	Northeast Shores • Northern Shores • Northwest Shores • Southeastern Shores • The Southeast Shores • The Western Approach • The Western Coast
Forests	Southern Jungle • The Eastern Forest • The Redwood Forests
Caves	Central Cave • Lava Cave • Lower South Cave • North East Cave • North West Cave • Snow Cave • Swamp Cave • Tek Cave • The Caverns of Lost Faith • The Caverns of Lost Hope • Upper South Cave
Arenas	Broodmother Arena • Dragon Arena • Megapithecus Arena • Overseer Arena
Other	Deep Ocean • Drayo's Cove • Ice Wyrm's Belly • The Belly of the Beast • The Deep Island • The Descent • The Frigid Deep • The Frozen Fang • The Frozen Maw • The Frozen Sea • The Gulch of Lamentation • The Hidden Lake • The Maw • The Shadow Road • The Throat of Borea • The Throat of Flame • The Writhing Swamps • Smuggler's Pass • Volcanic Maw