Frontier Developments’ Jurassic World Evolution franchise has taken the studio’s specialty of park management sims and brought it to the iconic Universal IP. Now, on its third title, Jurassic World Evolution 3, we visited London, England, to go hands-on with the title and speak with the developers.
We spoke with Jurassic World Evolution 3’s Game Director, Andy Fletcher, about everything new that players can expect and how the events of the most recent film, Jurassic World: Rebirth, impacted the game’s story and how players interact with their dinosaurs and enclosures. Fletcher’s role tasks him with forming and steering the game’s vision and prioritizing features that the team wants to achieve.
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To start, we had to talk about Geoff Goldblum’s Ian Malcom, who has easily become one of the Jurassic World franchise’s most iconic characters. “Life finds a way,” and Malcolm is back for Jurassic World Evolution 3. Canonically, Jurassic World Evolution 3 takes place after the events of Jurassic World: Dominion. Working hand in hand with Universal, Frontier Developments has always taken into account how the different events of each film have shaped the world.
Jurassic World Evolution 3 puts dinosaur families first.
“With Jurassic World Evolution 3, we’re really focusing on that point in the timeline, post-Dominion, where dinosaurs are out across the globe,” the Game Director said. “[Dinosaurs are] proliferating, and we have to ask: How do you handle that situation? That’s really the theme of our game.”
As dinosaurs have returned to the wild, the focus of the franchise has shifted from genetically creating dinosaurs to exploring their natural habitats, and in the case of Jurassic World Evolution 3, the role you play in developing dinosaur families.
“It dovetails with the breeding mechanics that we wanted to explore, and how you can sustainably do that/ It also gives us great flexibility to go to amazing locations, like Japan, Malta, and everywhere. So really, we chose [the post-Dominion] point in the timeline because it dovetails with the themes of our game. So, that’s our focus,” Fletcher said.
“[Dinosaurs are] proliferating, and we have to ask: How do you handle that situation? That’s really the theme of our game.”
With dinosaur families comes a first for the park management sim title: juvenile dinosaurs. In Frontier’s other beloved title, Planet Zoo, caretaking for the animals in your enclosure also requires you to take care of them at every cycle of development. Previous Jurassic World Evolution titles followed the creation of dinosaurs, just as the films traditionally have, focusing on science and recreation rather than procreation. Now? Well, we have adorable juvenile dinosaurs to look after.
“That was one of the real incentives behind adding that element of the game, that idea of a family unit, [which] gives you more flexibility gameplay-wise. It means some dinosaur families might be quite easy to look after, as they breed quite easily and they have the same kind of needs,” Fletcher said, explaining the new addition to the game.
“But we had an example earlier [in the preview] where someone bred a big Sauropod, and they realized, [Sauropods] needed unique foliage in that environment to satisfy the juveniles’ [needs] because of the height difference. So, that’s an interesting dynamic,” he continued.
“Then other [needs] occur, where you’ve got dinosaurs who might want a certain number of fellow juveniles in the herd. They might want a certain number of adults in there, and you can experiment with different population requirements and social requirements.”
Inheritance adds new complexity to managing enclosures.
“We really liked exploring that. The classic [dinosaur] I always talk about is the T. rex. If you have a juvenile T. rex that grows up [and] wants to be an alpha male, the dad might have something to say about that, so you’ve got to go and deal with [that conflict]. From a gameplay perspective, we really liked exploring that and the difference between species, but also the idea of inheritance [within the same species],” he continued.
Digging deeper into the family dynamics on display in Jurassic World Evolution 3, Andy Fletch dug into how dinosaur breeding works and some of the things transferred from parent to child.
“The two parents will actually pass down certain traits—whether they’re docile or aggressive or easy to look after—to their children, and visual traits as well. So, the coloration of skin patterns will also be passed down. Once you start working through the generations, you should start seeing those traits from the parents, and the visual [characteristics] come through. It was just really interesting ideas to explore.”
“A lot of our inspiration, in terms of the behaviors and the behavioral archetypes, the dinosaurs are drawn from nature.”
While similar to Planet Zoo, the key difference when it comes to Jurassic World Evolution 3’s animal breeding and family systems is that dinosaurs are extinct. Looking at existing dinosaur families isn’t possible. How did the development team bring them to life?
Andy Fletch explained, “A lot of our inspiration, in terms of the behaviors and the behavioral archetypes, the dinosaurs are drawn from nature. So, you will have some parents who are a bit more indifferent to their offspring. You have some who really want to be close to them, and want to have social interactions with them, and things like that.
He continued, “We take inspiration from the natural world because, like you said, no one was around to see what they actually did way back when, and we’ve made sure we verify any of these assumptions as best we can with paleontologists. We worked with Stephen Brusatte, who’s a great paleontologist and author, and was also a consultant on the Jurassic World movies.”
But Frontier Developments didn’t only consult a paleontologist, they also looked to Universal for guidance. “We talked to Universal about our plans and particularly the look of the dinosaur, making sure that it’s inspired by the latest paleontological drawings, but also fits within the Jurassic style as well. So in terms of the look, in terms of the behaviors, we get as much information as we can from paleontology, the natural world, and the Jurassic brand.”
Paleontology is the heart of developing every generation of dinosaur on display.
Working with a paleontologist also highlights the assumptions that we carry about how dinosaurs behaved in the wild. Fletcher explained how working with Brusatte helped teach the team along the way that dinosaurs were close to how animals in the wild behave now.
“Our assumptions about how [dinosaurs] behaved are in line with how animals behave in the wild now. There wasn’t anything radically different from what you can see in nature. I think it’s quite interesting that some of our dinosaur choices also try to play on some of those paleontology facts.
“For example, the first juvenile that you breed naturally is the Maiasaura juvenile. Maiasaura was the first dinosaur discovered with a clutch of juveniles. [That means paleontologists] found juvenile bones with the adults, and they made a lot of assumptions about the parental and maternal instincts of that dinosaur. ‘Good Mother Lizard.’ That’s what [Maiasaura] means. We thought that would be a great choice for the first dinosaur that you actually naturally breed. So, we’ve tried to play into some of those bits of [paleontology] trivia as well.
Jurassic World Evolution 3’s new features don’t stop with the caretaking of generations of dinosaurs. Fostering a creative environment for players to express themselves is another pillar of the game. Even though creativity has been a staple of the franchise, adding to its creative depth means introducing new or more in-depth ways for players to customize their park.
“[At Frontier Developments], we’ve built some games that are really flexible sandboxes, and we wanted to bring some of that flexibility to [Jurassic World Evolution 3].”
The key enhancement comes in terraforming, which now allows players to essentially design their own island, not just the terrain of an enclosure. “We wanted to break some of the restrictions of the previous games and let people be more creative. [At Frontier Developments], we’ve built some games that are really flexible sandboxes, and we wanted to bring some of that flexibility to [Jurassic World Evolution 3]. Still, it also ties into the gameplay.”
Fletcher continued, “The terraforming that you can do and the scenery you can build allow us to create more natural enclosures. [Terraforming] feeds into that theme of conservation and more naturalistic parks, because you can now enclose dinosaurs in with deep water bodies or with high rocky canyons, as long as you’ve got your Rangers coming in and checking on them now and again. There’s always a route for them to escape.”
“Basically, you can make [enclosures] look much more naturalistic. Our fans have kind of really taken to that. When they’ve seen the materials they’ve seen in the game so far, they love the possibility of what they can build with these new tools,” the Game Director said.
In practice, it took me a moment to recognize that the mountain range was actually a part of the enclosure. Seeing an unconnected fence, I wasn’t sure what it meant; however, once you understand the mechanics, it becomes essential to know when you should and shouldn’t delete the big rock. However, dinosaurs getting loose in your park has become one of Jurassic World Evolution’s most amusing comedic features.
Jurassic World Evolution 3 has learned from the past and expanded on it.
For players who have been with the series of games since the first game was launched in 2018, it’s clear to see how each game has become bigger and more creative, while also giving players more agency in how they construct their park. And for Jurassic World Evolution 3, it’s clear that the developers were able to learn from the past.
“One thing that we wanted to do with the game was learned from the previous game. A lot of what’s in Jurassic World Evolution 3, I think, is sort of a consolidation of the things that we think worked really well [in the last two games],” he said. “The campaign, structurally, gives a bit of a callback to the first game we [made]. You had more interconnected levels; it was a bit of a non-linear progression. We really liked that idea and made [Jurassic World Evolution] more flexible.”
Fletcher continued, “In terms of the other big pillars of the juvenile dinosaurs and the creativity, like I said, the creative tools, [draw a lot] on our experience, from other games and the families of dinosaurs, [was] just where we wanted to go next. When we looked at dinosaurs, we were like, ‘Well, do we add more? Do we make it deeper and give more gameplay? That’s where we wanted to go.”
After our time with the game, it’s clear how robust the new systems are, and all of that enhances the key quality that every sim game needs to hit: playability. With new and deeper systems, it seems like there will be no shortage of reasons to keep managing your park.
