What Does Fortitude Do in Ark: Survival Evolved and Ascended?

Ark: Survival Evolved and its next-gen version, Ark: Survival Ascended, let you boost your character’s stats, but there’s one thing that might have you scratching your head. If you’re wondering just what Fortitude does in Ark: Survival Evolved and Ascended, here’s the answer.

What Does Fortitude Do in Ark: Survival Evolved and Ascended?

In Ark: Survival Evolved and Ark: Survival Ascended, Fortitude determines how resistant you are to effects, including the weather, poisons, and more. The more points you put into Fortitude, the less likely those effects are going to hinder or harm you.

Still, that’s not such a big deal if you can avoid getting poisoned, right? Wrong. Fortitude is also extremely handy in dealing with extreme weather conditions such as cold or excessive heat. Even if you’re playing the game in an Easy zone, you can be five minutes away from heatstroke.

That said, don’t just put point after point into Fortitude in Ark: Survival Ascended and Ark: Survival Evolved right away. You’ll need to put some into crafting to get the basic equipment your survivor needs. And, as the Ark wiki points out, Fortitude will diminish weather effects, but unless you’re a high-level player with a massive number of points invested in the skill, it won’t save you from freezing to death.

Related: Is Ark: Survival Ascended Split-Screen? Answered

So, why put points into Fortitude if it’s not a total barrier against those effects? Well, because reducing the impact of those effects gives you the chance to negate them, whether that’s heading to shelter, finding an antidote, or some other cure for what ails you.

So, the answer to what Fortitude does in Ark: Survival Evolved and Ark: Survival Ascended is it increases your resistance to extreme weather, poison, disease and so on.

Ark: Survival Ascended is available on PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC, while Ark: Survival Evolved is available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, and PC.