Jurassic World Evolution is a business simulation video game developed and published by Frontier Developments and based on the 2015 film Jurassic World.
Frontier Developments Business SIM gives you the ability to be your own John Hammond and build the Dinosaur theme park of your dreams as you juggle the finances, dabble in dino genetics and stop the dinosaurs eating the guest when things break down.
Ever since the first Jurassic Park movie was released way back in 1993 there has been a surprisingly steady stream of games some of which were linked to whichever film was out at the time while others such as Trespasser and the seemingly forgotten Jurassic Park: The Game from Telltale Games took the concept in new original directions away from the films. Now with Jurassic World: Evolution you’re thrust into the role of park manager as your tasked with setting up functioning parks on each of the five islands which make up the “Five Deaths,” including Isla Sorna from The Lost World and of course Isla Nublar where you’re given complete freedom to build the dino park of your dreams.
Developed by Frontier Developments, who are certainly no stranger to sandbox management sims having previously worked on the likes of RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and Planet Coaster, now here they turn their attention to possibly the most ambitious theme park of their own as you attempt to succeed were John Hammond failed. It’s a goal that will see you wearing a lot of hats to make your park a success for not only are you responsible for building the park and its facilities but also handling the outbreaks, research and organising fossil digs to unlock more dinosaurs to add to your park.
Despite being sold as a business sim the game equally delivers as a sandbox experience like Frontiers other titles like the Tycoon series as your given all the tools you need to build your park with a surprising amount of freedom compared to the likes of Zoo Tycoon which used pre-made enclosures. Here though you can build the enclosures any way you see fit while backed up with responsive controls which make the obvious lack of a mouse on consoles never a concern and still enable a high level of creativity with your park designs. However, as a park owner you constantly have to work with the three main teams representing science, entertainment and security all who have their own motivations and ideas for the park, while in the background Dr. Wu can be found still running his own schemes and encouraging you to partake in a number of shady operations via the missions which each island comes with. However, complete these missions and you can earn additional funding for your park as well as unlocking new buildings, research and upgrades.
To generate income and make your park a success, you’re going to need paying guests and one of the key aspects of the game is certainly keeping the guests happy and generally stopping them from being turned into dino chow when one of your creations breaks out. Here, the game offers plenty of different shops and activities such as bowling, hotels and restaurants to for fill their needs and while there are some minor tweaks, which can be made such as offering lunch boxes over dino stickers the are sadly none of the options to generally rip off guests such as maxing the ice in drinks to maximise your profits. The flipside of this being that its simple to generate profits from these structures as the slider shows how much profit can be made from increasing prices and only a couple of times did I ever find myself running out of cash, a situation only further assisted by the continuous contracts on offer from the three departments.
So what about the dinosaurs? Well certainly there is a wide selection of 42 dinosaurs to research and introduce into your park including both the Indominous Rex and Indoraptor alongside firm favourites like Velociraptor, Diplodocus and of course the T-Rex. There are even lesser known species like the Giganotosaurus and Deinoychus all of which are so realistically animated, there is a real thrill that comes with each new species you release, especially when their interactions and movements feel very natural and never like they are on tracks making it fun to watch your favourite dinosaur moving around their enclosure and even socialising / battling with each other. Since the games release we have had the DLC “Secrets of Doctor Wu” as well as additional dino packs that have helped to add to the variety, much like the ability to play around with the genes of your creations from changing skin colour to making them more aggressive which can help boost their popularity with your guest but at the same time can make them all them all the more difficult to contain.
Each of the dinosaurs comes with different needs with some dinosaurs requiring large social groups while others such as the T-Rex will just kill anything that its put in an enclosure with. These needs ultimately affecting the comfort level which if they drop too low will cause them to damage the fences and inevitably make their escape. Hopefully, at this point you will have installed a ACU Centre where a helicopter team will tranquillise and return said dinosaur to its pen, unless of course you’d rather sell them for a profit. At the same time you have have the rangers who cruise around the park in jeeps handling all the ground tasks like repairs, refilling feeders and medicating your dinos when they get sick. Much like the ACU helicopter you can choose to control these units yourself giving you a third person perspective of the park and even allowing you to take photographs like Pokemon Snap.
Sadly, when it comes to the depth of the world building missions as well as any real storyline it does feel a little thin, more so with the missions sometimes feeling very similar and lacking in variety. While the messages from familiar faces such as Dr. Ian Malcolm (voiced by Jeff Goldblum himself) certainly add an atmosphere to the game it’s never ultimately amounts to anything outside of highlighting motivations for characters like Dr. Wu or questioning the morals of missions your assigned. The islands themselves come with some additional challenges as you move between them such as storms or limited building space there is no major cosmetic differences between the islands outside of the size of the sandbox.
For fans of the films or building games this is certainly a fun title and one which truly makes the most of the Jurassic Park license. Hopefully, its a title that can continue to grow the same way that we saw with Planet Coaster and with noticeable gaps in the dino catalogue for Marine and Flying dinosaurs, much less the more cosmetic details of the park structure I can’t help but feel there is still space to develop this title beyond what it currently is which is already a title worth investing your time in.