If you’ve spent any time grinding artifacts on ARK for PS4, you know the Ice Strong Artifact Cave is one of the most punishing mid-game runs you can tackle with a partner. Figuring out how to 2 man ice strong artifact cave ark ps4 without wiping, wasting hours of prep, or freezing to death halfway through feels impossible at first, but we’ve pulled off this run over 20 times on both official and unofficial servers, so we’ve got the exact steps you need to make it smooth. You don’t need top-tier tames or fully ascended gear to pull this off either – just a little coordination, the right loadout, and knowledge of the cave’s worst traps.
Pre-Run Prep You Can’t Skip for a 2 Man Ice Strong Artifact Cave Run
First, split roles clearly between you and your partner to avoid carrying duplicate items and wasting inventory space. One player will be the tank and damage dealer, the other will be the support and artifact runner, so their loadouts will differ slightly. We’ve tested a ton of loadout combinations, and the one below works 99% of the time even if you run into unexpected spawns of yetis or dire wolves.
- Tank loadout: Full flak armor with at least 70 armor per piece, 20 cooked prime meat, 10 medical brews, a pump action shotgun with 100 shotgun shells, a torch, and 50 stimberries to fight torpor from yeti attacks.
- Support loadout: Full fur armor with at least 50 armor per piece, 30 cooked prime meat, 15 medical brews, a longneck rifle with 50 rifle rounds, 20 warmth potions, the climbing pick and grappling hook, and an empty slot reserved specifically for the artifact.
- Shared tame prep: Bring one level 150+ dire bear or woolly rhino with at least 3k health and 600% melee damage, fitted with a saddle that has 80+ armor. We prefer dire bears because they move faster through narrow cave passages and take less cold damage than rhinos.
Don’t forget to set your tame to follow at a short distance before you enter the cave, and turn off neutral aggression so it doesn’t run off after a random bat and pull a whole pack of wolves to your position. We made that mistake on our third run, and we spent 10 minutes fighting off 12 wolves before we even got 100 feet into the cave. It’s not a fun way to burn through your medical brews before you hit the first ice patch.
Navigating the Cave’s Most Dangerous Sections With Two Players
The first 200 feet of the cave are the easiest, but don’t let your guard down. The support player should lead the way, scanning the walls for hidden ice traps that trigger when you step on them. These traps drop you into a pit of 5-7 dire wolves, and even with a good tame, you can lose half your health before you climb back out. The support can use their grappling hook to cross thin ice patches first, so they can mark safe spots for the tank and the tame to follow.
Halfway through the cave, you’ll hit the permanent cold zone where even fur armor won’t keep you warm enough on its own. The support should pop a warmth potion for both players as soon as you cross this threshold, and keep an eye on both of your temperature meters every 30 seconds. If your temperature drops below 10 degrees, you’ll start taking 5 damage per second, and it stacks fast if you’re also fighting enemies at the same time. The tank should stay in front of the support here, clearing out any yetis or purlovia that spawn out of the snow banks before they can get to the support player.
We usually stop for 30 seconds right before the artifact chamber to top off health, reload all weapons, and make sure our warmth potion timers still have at least 2 minutes left. The artifact chamber has 3 yeti spawns that trigger as soon as you walk in, so you don’t want to be caught off guard with low health or no ammo. That extra 30 seconds of prep has saved us from wiping twice, so don’t skip it.
How to Clear the Artifact Chamber and Grab the Ice Strong Artifact Fast
As soon as you walk into the chamber, the tank should send their tame after the closest yeti immediately, while they pull out their shotgun to take on the second one. The support should hang back by the entrance, using their longneck rifle to take headshots on the third yeti before it can charge either player. The yetis hit for 200+ damage per swing even through flak armor, so you don’t want to let them get close to the support player who’s wearing lower armor fur gear.
Once all three yetis are down, don’t stop to harvest them right away. The support should run straight to the artifact pedestal in the center of the room, grab the artifact, and put it directly into their inventory’s reserved slot. We’ve had runs where a random dire wolf spawned right after we cleared the yetis, and one of us almost died because we were too busy collecting yeti pelt to pay attention to our surroundings. You can always come back to harvest resources later, but if you die and lose the artifact, you just wasted the whole run.
Don’t forget to grab the hidden loot crates in the back corner of the chamber before you leave. They usually have ascended gear blueprints, high level saddles, or rare resources like polymer and organic paste that are worth way more than the yeti pelt. We’ve gotten two ascended longneck rifle blueprints from these crates over our runs, so it’s always worth the extra 10 seconds to check them.
Common Mistakes That Cause Wipes on 2 Man Ice Strong Artifact Cave Runs
We’ve made almost every mistake you can make on this run, so we know exactly what to watch out for to avoid wasting your prep time. The most common mistake we see new players make is bringing too many tames into the cave. More tames mean more bodies blocking narrow passages, and it’s easy for one of them to get stuck on an ice patch and pull a whole pack of enemies back to your group. One good tame is all you need for a 2 man run, so leave the extra wolves and bears at home.
Another common mistake is forgetting to stock up on warmth potions and relying on torches alone to stay warm. Torches don’t work in the permanent cold zone, and if you’re holding a torch, you can’t hold a weapon at the same time. We once had a run where our support player forgot their warmth potions, and we had to turn around halfway through the cave because they were taking too much cold damage to keep going. It’s such an easy item to forget, but it can make or break your whole run.
The last big mistake is rushing through the cave to get to the artifact faster. It’s tempting to run past enemy spawns if you’re short on time, but even one bat or wolf that you leave behind can follow you to the artifact chamber and attack you while you’re fighting the yetis. Take the extra 2 minutes to clear every enemy you see as you go, so you don’t have to fight them on top of the chamber spawns. It’s way less stressful than dealing with extra enemies when you’re already low on health and ammo.
Pulling off this run doesn’t require super high level gear or years of ARK experience, just a little coordination and the right prep steps. Now that you know how to 2 man ice strong artifact cave ark ps4, you can farm this artifact as often as you want to get boss fight tributes, high tier loot, or just show off to your tribe mates. We still run this cave at least once a week on our server, and even after dozens of runs, we still follow the exact same steps we laid out here to avoid wipes and make the run as fast as possible. Give it a try on your next play session, and you’ll be surprised how easy it is once you know what to expect.