Jurassic World Evolution 3 boss explains all the "major new additions that we wanted to realise"

Frontier Developments is back in the world of dinosaurs, with Jurassic World Evolution 3 launching tomorrow (Tuesday 21st October).

After delivering the first two JWE games, and eating up much of our free time in the process, the company stepped away from fossils and enclosures to make 2024’s Planet Coaster 2.

So, what brought the team back to Jurassic World? We asked Jurassic World Evolution 3’s game director, Andy Fletcher, at an elaborate preview event for the new game. (Check out the video above to see what we mean!)

Fletcher told us: “Jurassic World Evolution 3 began with the core, big features that we wanted to add. We wanted to go back to the series, because there was some major new additions that we wanted to realise.

“And they are; the addition of dinosaur families. So we've got male dinosaurs now, we have dinosaur breeding, which means you have juvenile dinosaurs. The whole dynamic of the family herd really excited us.

“As did the idea of bumping up the creativity of the game. So the building park building element, really overhauling that, giving players the power to build parks they never could before.

“We knew such potential in both of those areas that we, yeah, we wanted to go back to this franchise, which we love. And we're really proud of the first two games. We knew we had a big third game that we could make, too.”

We were given a few hours to try the game, and we managed to see the dinosaur breeding function in action.

It starts fairly simply — you just put a nest in your enclosure. If you have a breeding pair in the enclosure, there's a chance that a baby dinosaur will be born, and that baby dinosaur will then come into existence in the enclosure.

The challenging part is that the juveniles oftentimes have very different needs to the parents. So that adds an extra layer to the complexity of the gameplay.

In the previous games, you might never really go back to an enclosure once you'd ensured the dinosaurs within were happy in their surroundings. Now, a kid could be born at any point — life could find a way — and that will change the needs of everyone in the enclosure.

A simple example is this: you might need to make an enclosure that has low down on the floor food for the baby herbivores, but really high fruit-bearing trees for the adults, especially with those long-necked dinosaurs. This happened to us in the demo, and it forced us to go back and redo the enclosure to account for the new needs.

An evil thought occurred: could we strip the juveniles away from their parents, to make it a bit easier, and force them to live in separate enclosures? Or would they rebel against us for ripping their families apart?

“Yeah, they could do,” Fletcher explained. “So again, it's all about the social needs of that particular species."

"So, some adults might want adult males in the herd, they might want a certain number of juveniles. Juveniles might want to be near their parents or near adults in general. Typically, they would.

“So yeah, you may have found that they would have been a bit uncomfortable in their quarantined enclosure. And that's when, you know, breakouts can happen and peril can start, and you need to try and contain that.

"But it's up to the player, you know? You can try and play that way if you want.”

Fletcher also teased: “And things change, right? So, you know, the T-Rex. The adult T-Rex males are fine with the juvenile being in the enclosure.

"But when the juvenile grows up into an adult? Another adult male. It’s maybe not a good idea to have them in the same enclosure. So yeah, definitely something to keep an eye on as your park expands.”

And it’s not just the male dinosaurs and juveniles that are making the game more rich and challenging.

Fletcher told us: “There's a lot going on under the hood that's changed in terms of the modular building system that we've added in, and the incredible terrain tools that allow you to build parks and multiple layers.”

You can now build parks across different levels, with mountains and cascading waterfalls and natural barriers instead of just electric fences. The game looks like a true evolution, befitting for the name of the franchise, and we’re very much looking forward to playing more.

And would Fletcher have any tips for returning players, or new ones?

“What we've tried to do with the returning players is actually make the game still feel as familiar as possible,” Fletcher told us.

He added: "At the end of the day, we want people to pick up a controller or the mouse and keyboard and feel like, ‘Oh, I know. I'm back in Jurassic World Evolution. I know what I'm doing.

“We've also added some features that allow you to kind of preempt the chaos a little bit. So you've got systems like the security cameras that can catch rogue dinosaurs and automatically send out your capture teams to get them. You can set up patrol routes for a maintenance team to automatically deal with fence breaks and buildings that might have had some damage.

“So we've kind of tried to give people even more control over, you know, the high level management, so it doesn't… you don't always have to be the person who resolves that individual issue every time.

“In terms of first time players, I would definitely encourage them to learn about dinosaur breeding and get those juveniles into their parks, because the juveniles have very high appeal. They will bring a nice influx of guests into your park.

“And then, once the guests are in, you can put down your amenities and get your bank balance up so you can synthesise bigger and better dinosaurs and get more juveniles. So yeah, juveniles are the key.”

Jurassic World Evolution 3 launches 21st October for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

You can order your copy now. And you can see the rest of this interview on the Radio Times Gaming YouTube channel.

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