Jurassic World Evolution 3 review: Essential for dinosaur fans, lacking for tycoon players

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Dr. Ian Malcolm famously said, “Life finds a way,” and while he meant it for nature, the developers at Frontier Developments have brought that idea to life in their dinosaur park building game, Jurassic World Evolution 3. The biggest new feature in this latest installment is realistic dinosaur breeding. If you create the right environment, you’ll eventually see adorable baby dinosaurs hatching in their nests.

The game’s title feels more and more accurate – the third installment largely builds upon the ideas of the previous game without taking major risks. It’s still best suited for dinosaur and movie fans, rather than players looking for a complex management simulation, but that approach seems to be working well. Gameplay is definitely improved thanks to several quality-of-life updates. However, players might find the amount of content at launch and the game’s performance on the standard PlayStation 5 to be problematic.

Campaign is an overly long tutorial

Players familiar with the Jurassic World Evolution games will quickly feel comfortable. The core gameplay – building and managing your park, constructing attractions, and navigating the interface – is largely the same as before, sticking to the idea that if something works well, there’s no need to change it. New players, or those who prefer a structured experience, will enjoy the lengthy campaign mode, which serves as both a detailed tutorial and adds a story to the game.

This game picks up after the end of Jurassic World: Dominion, so you’re dealing with dinosaurs living freely and building parks in the USA, Europe, and Asia. Unfortunately, the story isn’t very good. The way it’s presented – through quick character photos and the constant chatter of irritating characters like Cabot Finch – and the threat of dinosaur-themed terrorism just don’t work. Even the return of Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm isn’t enough to save it. The game had the potential to be truly innovative, but it doesn’t even show much progress from what’s come before.

The game’s campaign functions effectively as a lengthy, detailed tutorial, teaching you how to build and run a dinosaur park. It consistently gives you objectives, starting with simple tasks like building structures and progressing to more complex goals that can be achieved in various ways. The game slowly unlocks new attractions and dinosaur types to add to your park, and eventually lets you switch between different maps, offering more freedom and a sense of choice in how you complete objectives. My only frustration was with the initial park layouts, which felt cramped and cluttered, making improvements difficult without significant demolition – though this might have been intentional to add a challenge.

Dino puppies are the best

One of the most talked-about features of the game is the ability for dinosaurs to naturally reproduce. Seeing baby dinosaurs hatch from their nests is really exciting! It’s rewarding to know you’ve created a good environment for the parents, and the babies are just fun to watch. While some hatchlings simply look like miniature adults, others, like the young Lokiceratops, are incredibly cute and playful – they even act like puppies! The animations perfectly capture their adorable behavior.

Raising baby dinosaurs brings completely new challenges. They might need different food than the adults, and you’ll need to manage the population to prevent overcrowding. It’s more than just a new feature for dinosaur care; it’s also a fun goal, especially if you want to see your favorite species reproduce and observe how the developers designed their young.

PROS:

  1. New mechanics of natural dinosaur breeding, appearance, and animations of some young dinos;
  2. many QoL improvements that increase the gameplay comfort;
  3. random island generator adds diversity in choosing terrain for gameplay;
  4. Sandbox mode offers complete, unrestricted freedom to create your dream Jurassic park from scratch.

CONS:

  1. Poor optimization on the base PS5, crashing to the console’s home screen;
  2. lack of truly surprising, bold innovations – it’s just a refresh of ideas from the previous game;
  3. the campaign and challenge mode could be better, especially in the absence of Chaos Theory.

Less clicking, less tedious micromanagement

Beyond the fun of surprise eggs with tiny dinosaurs, it’s just as important to improve how the game feels and give players more choices. This includes things like better tools for shaping the landscape – letting you build realistic fences and water features – automatic upkeep for your buildings and fences, and security cameras that spot escaping reptiles and quickly dispatch a helicopter to recapture them.

Occasionally, the automated systems might need a little help, but generally, things are smoother and require less tedious work, freeing up time for more enjoyable tasks. We’ve also added exciting new features like balloon and kayak park tours, more decorations, and the ability to easily use mods created by the community – even on consoles! Plus, in free play, you can generate random islands with customized terrain.

Challenges could be random…

When it comes to the Sandbox free play mode, you’re not limited to just the island generator, flat maps, or campaign locations. You can actually customize almost every aspect of the game – things that control how it plays and how difficult it is – allowing you to build the park of your dreams. The possibilities are endless, but players often find themselves making the game easier rather than harder when given this much control.

If you’re looking for even more to do, there’s a ‘Challenge’ mode. This mode offers specific missions with time limits. These tasks are quite diverse, ranging from driving and photographing dinosaurs to rescuing the park from financial trouble, or managing a difficult staff and low security. While some missions are engaging, others feel less exciting – it’s a shame there aren’t randomly generated challenges, as many of the restrictions used in these missions can already be customized in the Sandbox mode.

I was hoping for more direct references to the movies, particularly the original, which I think is the best. The game has all the pieces to make a true Jurassic Park experience, but it feels like we’re left to build it ourselves without much guidance. The last game had a ‘Chaos Theory’ mode that really captured the feel of the films, and it’s disappointing that this game doesn’t offer something similar.

Evolution – so little and yet so much

My biggest issue with the game is how poorly it runs on the standard PlayStation 5. I briefly played the original Jurassic World Evolution 2 to compare, and it was noticeably smoother. The new game often stutters during animations, and doesn’t maintain a consistent 60 frames per second like its predecessor. While the graphics are improved, it doesn’t make up for the performance issues. I also experienced crashes that sent me back to the PlayStation menu, and minor glitches like seeing multiple copies of the same character in the park.

Luckily, the biggest problems with Jurassic World Evolution 3 aren’t about things that are broken, but rather what’s missing. It reuses content from older games instead of adding new stuff, and it doesn’t really introduce any innovative ideas. Because of this, the game might be more appealing to newcomers than to dedicated fans – unless you’re a huge dinosaur enthusiast and enjoy the creative freedom of the sandbox mode, which could keep you busy until the next installment. Knowing the developers, Frontier, we can expect more content to be added through downloadable content. Despite these issues, there’s still a lot to do and breed, and I’m already enjoying building my own virtual version of John Hammond’s park.

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2025-11-03 13:35