Dreams Really Do Come True: Jurassic World Evolution Revealed

Have you ever played Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis?

No? I figured as much.

It’s a great park sim that released back in 2003 on PS2, Xbox (the real Xbox One lol), and PC. You start out with a blank island populated by trees, rivers, mountains, and flora in quantites you set using sliders while creating your island. To help kickstart your new park venture is $600k and a few structures available for purchase like the main park gates, a dinosaur hatchery, two dinosaur species, a basic fence, and a few other things. It’s then up to you to build, expand, and maintain your park to ultimately drive a profit. All of this, while keeping your park attendees safe as well as your dinosaurs healthy.

It is a sim game after all, so your dinos can get sick, die, reproduce, escape, and more. You may have to call in the chopper to sedate a rogue dino and move it back to a refortified pen like in my embedded tweet below. You also run the risk of suffering park damages from mother nature with natural disasters like tornadoes. Fun!

So you’re probably wondering why the hell I’m writing about a 12 year old game. Well, dear reader, that’s because since it’s release the game has been kept alive by a passionate modding community with high-res skin packs, expansions, and various other cheats and tweaks. I fired Operation Genesis back up to play and forgot how satisfiying it is when things are running smoothly. When the Jurassic Park 3D and Jurasic World hit theatres, mobile studio Lucida released free-to-play park Sims that were watered down versions of Operation Genesis with a focus on In-App-Purchases for money, DNA, popular dinosaur species, and more. Want to build that expansion quicker? Spend real world money to speed it construction! Want the famous T-Rex from the first movie? Buy a legendary card pack and hope it’s there! Oh—did I mention you have to be constantly connected to the internet to play? No? Well I found that out on my commute this morning! I redownloaded both mobile games this morning and discovered they now have a VIP subscription for $9.99 a month to get in-game items—gross!

All that frustration looks like it could (hopefully) be put to rest after this week’s announcement at Gamescom by the studio responsible for Elite Dangerous, Frontier Developments. The studio announced Jurassic World Evolution for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, a title that looks to be the proper spiritual successor we’ve been waiting over a decade for! And skimming through the Twitter comments under the announcement tweet, fans are incredibly excited! I’ve embedded the CG trailer below. The game is expected to release in 2018 to coincide with the next movie installment, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. My only real disappointment is that the game isn’t planned for Switch—at least not yet. And I’m not alone. Other eager fans are echoing my sentiment, so hopefully things change if Switch continues to sell the way it has been. Fans would be thrilled to be able to take this game with them anywhere without internet connection restrictions. What do you think? Are you excited? Would you rather play it on Switch? Let us know!

Jurassic World Evolution Reveal Trailer