This announcement celebrates the first anniversary of the release of ARK: Survival Evolved, saying patch 242 is now live, adding a bunch of new content to the dinosaur survival game, and launching a birthday celebration. This trailer notes the news and shows everything off, and here's a bit on what's going on:

Studio Wildcard, the studio that never sleeps, updated ARK: Survival Evolved for Steam PC today with a slew of diseases (and cures!), a 10-seat Dino Taxi ride to the nearest watering hole, and a new Boss Fighting Pit where a massive dragon likes to come and play. Yes, it’s ARK Dev Update #242 and it’s loaded to the primordial gills with cool stuff!

View the ARK: Survival Evolved Update Event Trailer on YouTube HERE: Youtu.be/SCptFi1elDQ

New and experienced players will enjoy two newly added creatures: Diplodocus, a sturdy slow-moving dinosaur capable of carrying as many as 10 simultaneous players, and the horrific Leech, a nasty disease-carrying blood-sucker that attaches to you en masse.

Alongside these new dinos, the new structure Training Dummy displays floating Damage Per Second values indicating how strong each dino attack actually is, while the new mechanic, Permanent Diseases & Cures, enables players to deliberately infect Dodos to use them as Disease Vectors! If you get a permanent disease, it persists even beyond respawn and you need to cure it with an antidote to get rid of it.

On Thursday, June 2, ARK: Survival Evolved officially turns one year old and to celebrate Studio Wildcard is running a one-week “ARK Birthday Event” where players can find Candles from Supply Crates to craft ARK Birthday Cakes. When each candle is blown out, a special message to the players occurs and exclusive items are gifted, including: player and dino party hats, as well as "Birthday Suits" which make the character appear naked (with censor-pixelization). Then devour the tasty Cake for a major XP buff!