ARK Admin Commands: Console, Cheats and Server Admin List

ARK documents over 250 console commands, most of which are debug or single-player toys. This guide is a curated admin subset — how to grant and authenticate admin access, where commands can be typed, and the ~75 commands that matter for running a server, all verified against the official ARK wiki.

1. Grant Admin Access

Admin access is gated behind ServerAdminPassword in GameUserSettings.ini, under [ServerSettings]:

[ServerSettings]
ServerAdminPassword=YourStrongPassword

Stop the server, edit the file, save, then start it again. This is also the password RCON authenticates with.

Do not quote the password, and treat it as a root credential

The wiki is explicit that no quotes are used around the value. Anyone who knows it can grant themselves full admin on your server.

For permanent admin without a password, whitelist the account instead — whitelisted players get admin on every login with no enablecheats step. Create the file below and list one ID per line:

76561197960287930
76561198092541763

Survival Evolved uses AllowedCheaterSteamIDs.txt and Steam IDs (17 digits); Survival Ascended uses AllowedCheaterAccountIDs.txt and EOS IDs (32 alphanumeric characters). A whitelist removes the need for an admin password entirely, though you can still set one for staff who are not on the list.

2. Authenticate In-Game

Connect, create a character, open the console, then run:

enablecheats YourStrongPassword

Tapping Tab twice expands the console, which makes typos easier to spot. You do not need enablecheats in single-player.

3. The cheat and admincheat Prefixes

This is the most common source of confusion, and the answer is simpler than the folklore suggests.

• On a multiplayer server, admin commands need either cheat or admincheat. The wiki treats the two as interchangeable and documents no behavioural difference.
• In single-player, no prefix is needed.
• Commands are not case-sensitive, booleans accept true/false/1/0, and distances are in game units (centimetres).

Commands chain with a vertical bar, but each needs its own prefix:

cheat LeaveMeAlone | cheat Fly | cheat God

Two different player IDs, and mixing them up fails silently

Moderation commands (KickPlayer, BanPlayer) take the Ark ID — 17 digits for Steam, 19 for Epic, 32 characters for EOS. Targeting commands (TeleportPlayerIDToMe, KillPlayer, GiveItemToPlayer) take the UE4 PlayerID, a 10-digit number. Passing the wrong one usually does nothing rather than erroring. cheat ListPlayers shows Ark IDs; ShowMyAdminManager copies the UE4 PlayerID.

4. Player and Admin Management

GetGameLog only works if the server was launched with -servergamelog; buffer size is set with RCONServerGameLogBuffer.

5. Kicking, Banning and Whitelisting

These take the Ark ID, not the UE4 PlayerID. On Xbox and PlayStation, BanPlayer takes the platform account name instead of a number.

AllowPlayerToJoinNoCheck is not an admin whitelist

It adds the player to PlayersJoinNoCheckList.txt — the list that lets players bypass the maximum player count. It is neither the admin whitelist (AllowedCheaterSteamIDs.txt) nor the join whitelist used by -exclusivejoin. Its advantage is applying immediately, whereas editing the file needs a restart.

6. Movement, Player State and Spectating

Every command here acts on you.

God blocks attacks, explosions and falls but not drowning — you need InfiniteStats for that, and InfiniteStats alone does not make you invulnerable. EnableSpectator kills your character and destroys everything it carried, so stash your gear first.

7. Teleporting

Teleport with no arguments is rarely what you want — if nothing blocks your path you land at map coordinate 0,0.

8. Server and World Control

Run server-wide commands from the GameServerKings panel Console tab

SaveWorld, Broadcast, ListPlayers, KickPlayer, BanPlayer and DestroyWildDinos all work over RCON, so the Console tab on your rented ARK: Survival Evolved server is the easiest route — no need to be in-game. Enable RCON with RCONEnabled=True and RCONPort=27020 in [ServerSettings]; it authenticates with your ServerAdminPassword.

Commands that target you or your crosshair cannot run over RCON

Anything the wiki marks Self or Crosshair — Fly, God, ForceTame, GiveItem, DestroyMyTarget — needs an in-game character to act on, and will not work from a remote console.

Raising the wild level cap takes two steps, because existing creatures keep the level they spawned at. A difficulty value of 5.0 lets common creatures reach level 150:

cheat SetDifficultyValue 5
cheat DestroyWildDinos

9. Giving Items

The last argument is a boolean: 0 gives the item, 1 gives its blueprint.

cheat gfi bugr 10 0 0
cheat giveitem "Blueprint'/Game/PrimalEarth/CoreBlueprints/Items/Consumables/PrimalItemConsumable_BloodPack.PrimalItemConsumable_BloodPack'" 1 0 0

GFI needs only a distinctive fragment of the blueprint path, which is why it has largely replaced GiveItem. It matches the path, not the display name: atv will not find the Tek ATV because its path contains PrimalItemVHBuggy, and bug returns the ATV rather than Bug Repellant.

10. Spawning and Taming Creatures

Creatures tamed with ForceTame ride without a saddle, whereas DoTame fires the normal taming triggers, granting XP and the dossier entry. GMSummon applies the standard 50% taming bonus, so divide your target level by 1.5 — pass 100 for level 150. Its quotation marks are mandatory.

ForceTame and DoTame crash the server if you are mounted

The wiki states plainly that both crash the game or server when run while mounted. Dismount first — this is the most common way admins take a live server down by accident.

11. Tribe Management

There is no ListTribes command. Use cheat SetCheatPlayer 1 and look at a tribe structure to read its TeamID, which is the TribeID these commands expect.

GetTribeIdPlayerList is the fastest way to bridge the two ID systems — it prints both for every member.

12. Cleanup and Destroy Commands

DestroyAll takes tamed creatures with it

DestroyWildDinos only touches untamed creatures and is safe for a level-cap change. DestroyAll, DestroyAllTames and DestroyStructures are irreversible and delete player property. Run cheat SaveWorld and take a backup first.

13. ARK: Survival Ascended

The wiki documents both games on one page and the overwhelming majority of commands above are shared. The admin-relevant differences: the PC console key is ~ rather than Tab; whitelisting uses AllowedCheaterAccountIDs.txt with 32-character EOS IDs; and a few commands take ASA-only arguments, such as the DestroyCharacter boolean on EnableSpectator. The wiki does not tag every command with per-game availability, so test anything unusual before relying on it.

14. FAQ

How do I make myself an admin on my ARK server?

Set ServerAdminPassword under [ServerSettings] in GameUserSettings.ini, restart, then run enablecheats YourPassword in the console. For permanent access, add your Ark ID to AllowedCheaterSteamIDs.txt (Survival Evolved) or AllowedCheaterAccountIDs.txt (Survival Ascended) instead.

What is the difference between cheat and admincheat?

Functionally, nothing. The official wiki treats them as interchangeable prefixes and documents no behavioural difference. The only real rule is that one of them is required on a multiplayer server, and neither is needed in single-player.

Why does my kick or ban command do nothing?

Almost always because you used the wrong ID. KickPlayer and BanPlayer want the Ark ID — 17 digits for Steam, 19 for Epic, 32 characters for EOS — while teleport and kill commands want the 10-digit UE4 PlayerID. Run cheat ListPlayers for Ark IDs, or cheat GetTribeIdPlayerList <TribeID> to see both at once.

Why do some commands not work from my host's console?

Commands acting on your own character, or on whatever your crosshair points at, cannot run over RCON, because there is no character behind a remote session. Fly, God, GiveItem and ForceTame all fall into this group, while server-wide commands like SaveWorld and KickPlayer work fine remotely.

How do I increase the maximum wild creature level?

Run cheat SetDifficultyValue <Value> followed by cheat DestroyWildDinos. The second command is required, because creatures already spawned keep their existing levels. A difficulty value of 5.0 allows common creatures up to level 150.

Do admin commands show up in chat?

Only if you turn that on. AdminLogging defaults to False; setting it to True logs all admin commands to in-game chat for every player. On Survival Evolved the -NotifyAdminCommandsInChat launch option is the middle ground — it shows cheat and admincheat commands to admins only.

15. What to Read Next

• ARK: Survival Evolved Configuration — the settings these commands change
• Getting started with your ARK: Survival Evolved server
• How to install mods for ARK: Survival Evolved

Made with 💜 by GameServerKings