Jurassic World Evolution 3 arrives on consoles and computers today. Brad and I were lucky to get early access to the game courtesy of the team at Frontier Developments. At the time of writing this the official Xbox club for the game is not live, so I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve sunk in so far – but I’d estimate an easy ten to twenty hours.
Now I want to pretext this by saying this is very much a review ‘in progress’. I have not completed the JWE3 campaign yet, and have spent a significant amount of time playing the Sandbox mode since this is where the game really shines in my opinion. This does mean I haven’t done everything which the game offers yet – so keep this in mind as we progress through this review.
With all that said, let’s dive into my thoughts on the third release in the Evolution franchise.
Let’s start with one of the most touted features in this game – the inclusion of juvenile dinosaurs. To date I’ve hatched a couple of herbivores, a carnivore and also a Pterosaur juvenile. I love how intuitive and easy-to-use the breeding system is, allowing you to quickly and easily populate your park with lots of young animals.
The designs for the juveniles are equal part goofy and adorable, but I think that is part of their charm. The way they feed into the park ranking system provides a natural incentive to introduce breeding programmes within parks. I like how these mimic real-world conservation efforts in an interesting and engaging way.
Alongside the inclusion of juveniles, JWE3 also spouts an impressive upgrade to the terrain tools which are available at players finger tips. The expanded terrain tools provide much more verticality and a greater feeling of natural terraforming. Parks look more organic than they did in Jurassic World Evolution and Jurassic World Evolution 2.
Waterfalls are one of the stand-out additions here, but I have to admit they can be a bit clunky at times – and this can leave you feeling frustrated. Waterfalls work by placing water on two levels of different verticality, but they only work to a certain height, and are easy to erase. I think that in time something like a waterfall brush tool may be a good way to address this and improve functionality.
I will say that the tools themselves don’t always give you the appearance you’d like for your parks – but they work in conjunction with scenery and blueprints to combine for something truly special, so we’ll touch on those elements next!
Scenery tools offer a fantastic way to make your parks feel much more naturalistic. JWE3 introduces phasing to objects like rocks, meaning you can border fences and buildings with natural geology much more seamlessly. This means you can create whole parks which utilise natural barriers for enclosures – something which has never been possible with vanilla versions of the previous games. When you pair this with Blueprints things really take a step up to a new level.
Blueprints are combinations of the different individual scenery objects which can be placed in the game. They can include things like combinations of plants, specific seating areas for guests, unique designs for buildings and much more. I found that blueprints quickly and efficiently allowed me to add new layers of depth and detail to my parks – making them far better than any parks I created in previous games.
Blueprints function in conjunction with the Frontier Workshop, meaning you can upload your own blueprints and download other player’s blueprints. This is a fantastic tool which helps to add a constant rotation of new buildings and designs to parks. I’ve uploaded a BioSyn Field Base as my first main blueprint to the Workshop – so make sure you download it if you want to add some BioSyn flare to your parks.
These new elements of scenery and blueprints go hand-in-hand with the new attractions like the Cretaceous Cruise and the Dinosaur Encounter to give us more distinctive park tools than we have ever had access to before. I feel like Park Managers now truly have a diverse set of tools which will prevent every park from looking the same – and that’s before we even touch on modular buildings!
As mentioned before, modular buildings are a game-changing addition to JWE3. Whilst the addition allows you to make your own buildings, I will be honest – the camera mode right now is clunky, and often requires persistence to achieve desired results. I think Frontier could correct this over time by adding a more precise camera mode, but for now modularity still allows you to add new depth to your parks which we have never seen before.
Alongside a lot of the new structure and scenery elements, we also get some new natural requirements – with barrens and wetlands making their debut for the first time in JWE3. I love how different dinosaurs have different environmental needs, ensuring that every park you create looks and feels distinctive. This is a very natural way of adding much more diversity to the appearance of different parks and paddocks.
On the subject of different parks, we need to talk maps. A good variety of maps are available at launch covering all of the biome types we saw in Jurassic World Evolution 2 plus some new ones like the East Asia regions. Whilst there are mostly great additions and carry over here, I have to admit that some maps – in particular the new BioSyn Valley map – do feel needlessly restrictive.
Hopefully new maps will come post-launch as there is a lot of potential for Frontier to build out the selection, and potentially expand on what is already available with some altered map restrictions over time. There are also no natural lagoons available currently – something I’d certainly like to see change post-launch.
Now we’re several hundred words deep into this review of JWE3 and we haven’t even touched on dinosaurs or dinosaur variety yet. That may seem like a bad thing, but honestly, the dinosaurs here are solid. Lots of returning fan favourites and some new blood added to the game to change things up – plus a confirmed pipeline of returning favourites from the base JWE2 game which will be added for free.
Dinosaur behaviours feel tight, and the models are as gorgeous as they have always been in the Evolution franchise. Whilst I did get some strange looped behaviours similar to those seen in JWE2 at times, these have always been ironed out post-launch, so I have no concerns about them. It feels ironic to only fleetingly touch on the animals in a dinosaur game, but honestly the additions to building our parks are the real stars here.
As mentioned beforehand, I’ve only scratched the surface of the Campaign mode, but I am enjoying what is there so far. It feels like it walks the tonal tight-rope between Jurassic World Dominion and Jurassic World Rebirth well, with some callbacks to the former, and some subtle foreshadowing for the latter. The stand-out detail has to be the dialogue for returning fan favourite Ian Malcolm. Whoever wrote it deserves a raise.
I have spent countless hours in Sandbox Mode, and this is a returning triumph here – featuring all of the dinosaurs unlocked straight out of the gate. You can also turn off dinosaur maturity so that you permanently have juvenile dinosaurs roaming around your parks – something which is a welcome addition. I am going to lose hours of my life to Sandbox Mode, and I’m surprisingly fine with that.
It would be remiss to talk Sandbox without talking Island Generator. Fans have been clamouring for this feature for years and it makes a triumphant return from the days of Operation Genesis, allowing us to build the archipelagos of our dreams. I haven’t dived deep into Island Generator yet but know I am going to love building parks of all shapes and sizes.
So it’s fair to say we’ve looked at a bunch of the new features in JWE3 and I’ve given you my thoughts on them. The question we’re left with is simple – do all of these changes and additions make JWE3 a worthy successor?
In my opinion it is a resounding yes.
JWE3 is a fantastic game which truly upgrades the creative tools it puts at its players fingertips in every possible way. From new terrain tools to blueprints, it is clear that this game has been built from the ground-up with the intention of offering an immersive experience unlike that seen in the previous two titles.
With the addition of Frontier Workshop, alongside so much personalisation, I truly feel like this game has a bright future ahead of it. It’s a toolbox – and once that toolbox is in the hands of the community, the real magic begins.
Huge thanks to Frontier Developments for providing access to an advanced copy of Jurassic World Evolution 3 to make this review possible.
Written by: Tom Jurassic