At Gamescom day during the run-up to the Microsoft conference, the creators of Planet Coaster Frontier Developments announced a new theme park building sim - Jurassic World: Evolution, based on the popular Jurassic Park franchise. It will release on PC, Xbox One and PS4 in Summer 2018 to coincide with the next movie in the series, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. There's a pre-rendered teaser trailer that we've embedded below, and the game may be shown off in-depth at the Frontier Expo in October.
Here's all our coverage of Planet Coaster, from the same developer as Jurassic World: Evolution!
The new game will be presumably built on the Planet Coaster technology that has served Frontier well so far. Jurassic World: Evolution will be set on Isla Nublar, the original island of the series seen in Jurassic Park and Jurassic World. The Lost World and Jurassic Park III were set on Isla Sorna, aka "Site B", and we're told that the islands surrounding Isla Nublar will be available too so Rubbish Sequel Island might be available as well. Players will be able to construct attractions, containment and research facilities, and even bioengineer new dinosaurs breeds, which even if you haven't seen Jurassic World you know can't possibli go wrong.
Frontier’s Chief Creative Officer, Jonny Watts, had this to say:
"As long-time fans of the entire Jurassic series we’re thrilled to be putting players in charge of their own Jurassic World. We’re excited to bring over fifteen years of management, simulation, and creature development expertise to a destination and franchise that remains an inspiration to us."
Of course this is not the first Jurassic Park videogame with the idea of building your own dinosaur theme park. Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis was released in 2003 on PC and consoles, and it wasn't bad except for a ridiculously close camera angle. It still commands quite high prices these days, mostly due to the fact that it's such a damn good idea and it's astonishing that it's taken a further 15 years for someone to update it.
That it's coming from Frontier who have got such a pedigree with the theme park building genre is the icing on the cake. Apart from Elite Dangerous it's what the developer is best known for, with Planet Coaster, Thrillville and Rollercoaster Tycoon all being excellent theme park sim titles. They also recently announced their own Expo in October where they promised "an exclusive in-depth look" at their next game. Presumably we'll get more on Jurassic World: Evolution then.
Jurassic World: Evolution will launch in Summer 2018, and the next movie Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom will be out June 2018 which will have Jeff Goldblum in it so it has to be good. Hopefully the game will at least be better than Jurassic Park: The Game, Telltale's take on the franchise which served as their testing ground for the gameplay style they used from The Walking Dead onwards. We presume they'll have plenty of Bort license plates in stock, at least.
