Jurassic World Evolution 3 review: It's good to be back, but it's not perfect

It’s good to be back, but Jurassic World Evolution 3 isn’t a perfect game. And that’s coming from a long-time fan of this dinosaur-stuffed theme park management series.

When Frontier Developments stepped away from their fossil-dusting kits to make Planet Coaster 2 a few years ago, I feared the worst. I thought the Jurassic World Evolution franchise was dead in the water like the victims of a Mosasaurs attack.

With that in mind, it’s a cause for celebration that JWE has returned with a whole new game, outlasting the original Jurassic World movie series (which has now been relaunched with a new cast including Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey).

Let’s start with the movie connections. While Owen Grady (Chris Pratt’s role from the films) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) were key characters in the campaign last time, with Howard even lending her voice to the game, this new release only refers to them in passing.

On the upside, Jeff Goldblum is still present and correct, voicing Ian Malcolm once again. The good doctor constantly quibbles and questions whether any of this is a good idea, and Goldblum’s inimitable line deliveries really add a layer of fun authenticity to proceedings.

The story, set after Jurassic World Dominion, tasks you with travelling to sites around the globe and helping dinosaurs in various different ways. In some places, you’ll find a good old-fashioned theme park. In others, a scientific project or a breeding programme that needs your assistance.

Speaking of breeding, that’s one of the big new upgrades this time around, and it makes the gameplay so much deeper and more engaging than before.

In previous entries, once your dinosaurs were happy in their enclosure, you could leave them alone for huge stretches of time without anything going wrong.

In this new game, if you have a breeding pair and you give them a nest, you will eventually see a juvenile dinosaur coming to life in your midst. Not only is this a beautiful moment (if you enjoyed watching new dinosaurs arrive in their enclosures, you’ll love this), but it’s also a major shake-up to the gameplay.

You see, juvenile dinosaurs don’t always have the same needs as their parents. They might want a different kind of food, for example, or a different sort of company. This forces you to think twice about your enclosures, to revisit them regularly and mix things up to keep everyone happy.

Another new addition is that parks can exist on multiple levels, allowing some verticality and cool visuals like cascading waterfalls or enclosures at the top of mountains.

Security cameras are a cool new feature, too, allowing you to automate more of your maintenance in a way that will feel familiar to fans of Two Point Museum and its burglar system.

We’re very confident that if you enjoyed either of the previous Jurassic World Evolution games, you’ll have an absolute blast with this one.

You’ll lose – once again – days of your life to mastering it and unlocking more goodies as you go. The upgrades are strong, while the core gameplay and vibes are exactly what you’ll want. (Shoutout, as ever, to the music of Jurassic Park.)

However, that’s not to say the game is perfect. Playing on a controller may not be the primary way that people play this sort of game, but I always do, and I did find it particularly fiddly this time out.

Trying to get the item I wanted to see actually in the frame and visible was very fiddly at points, particularly coming in and out of aviaries.

Without the use of a mouse, getting around the menus felt arduous at times as well. Finding the thing you like, and remembering whether it counts as an ‘enclosure’ or ‘attraction’, for example, did get a bit annoying at times. I’d find myself pausing time just so I could find the right thing.

Also, with the amount of overlapping systems in the game, there were one or two points where I got stuck for longer than I’d like trying to work out how to chain the different elements together.

How to hire the right scientists, to research the right dig site, to find the right fossils, to get the right genome, and so on. There will always be busy work in a game like this, but you don’t want it to go beyond the point of being engaging, and you definitely don’t want it to feel like managing the menus takes up more of your time than the park building.

All things considered, Jurassic World Evolution fans will be happy that the franchise is back and there will be enough shiny new elements to keep them entertained. But if you’ve never gotten on with this series before, you probably won’t start now.

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

You can order your copy now. We reviewed on Xbox Series X.

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