Jurassic World Evolution 3 is the "next frontier" for the series with baby dinosaurs, new creative tools, and a globe-trotting campaign

I can't wait to help life find a way in Jurassic World Evolution 3 thanks to one of the most exciting new features it will introduce: dinosaur breeding. With the chance to take a first look at the next entry in Frontier's pre-historic management sim, game director Andy Fletcher and principal designer Sandy Samaroco guide us through the process of creating baby dinosaurs, or "juveniles" as they're referred to in-game. As female triceratops are already roaming about, adding males is the first step, which leads us to the new and improved hatchery building where you can synthesize dino DNA and incubate dinosaurs to release in parks.

While hatcheries are a returning feature, there's a more detailed suite of options to play with this time, with Samarco revealing a variety of different colors and patterns that can be spliced into a dino's DNA to customize their appearance. Plus, thanks to a new integrated 3D dinosaur viewer, you can visualize what they'll look like before you start the incubation process. Not only do I appreciate the level of control this will give us to bring our own ancient scaly friends to life, but I also love the way these customization options can then be passed down to the next generation when the breeding begins. After setting down nests in the park and ensuring its inhabitants have a high enough comfort level, the first eggs are laid, and it's not long before I'm looking at baby triceratops who've inherited their parents traits and markings.

Breeding answers a longheld wish among the community to at last introduce baby dinosaurs to parks, but it also promises to bring an added layer of depth to the management sim. When I sit down to speak with Fletcher following the preview, it's clear that adding juvenile dinos to the experience is something the team "always wanted" to do: "It's always felt like the next frontier for our dinosaurs really," Fletcher says, "to have them fleshed out as families, as real animals who can breed and create generations of themselves, passing down traits, passing down aesthetics, and things like that. Just from a creative management simulation perspective, we thought there was great depth there."

Pre-historic globetrotter

The dinosaur breeding feature also marries perfectly with the key conservationist themes and "global narrative" of Jurassic World Evolution 3. As Fletcher explains, the core campaign – which will be the biggest campaign in the series to date – takes place after the events of the Jurassic World Dominion movie, which saw dinosaurs really start to become a part of our world. As it's set in an era of the "timeline where dinosaurs are spreading across the globe", as Fletcher put it, we'll be venturing to different locations across East Asia, Europe, and America, as we work for an organization known as the Dinosaur Integration Network.

With the advent of breeding and juveniles, we'll be striving to ethically conserve the habitats we create and foster by running sustainable breeding programs. During the preview, I get to see two locations that make up part of the world map, including a picturesque spot in Japan, and another park in Malta. Both have distinctly different terrains and building styles, and I can already see how this will offer up lots of visual variety when it comes to the parks we can create. For the team at Frontier, designing a campaign that's set across the globe presented them with the opportunity to bring us to new locations, but as Fletcher explains, it was also important to ensure every place feels distinctly Jurassic, too.

"Some are very evocative of particular locations or scenes in the movies," Fletcher says. "And we saw a level based around Malta; Malta was obviously a key location in [Jurassic World] Dominion. So [it's about] trying to pick on locations that are evocative for our fans and authentic to Jurassic, but also just have that mixture of new and exciting ones that bring not just new locations, but new architectural styles: East Asia is a clear example of that."

"We don't want to go too far from the franchise, because authenticity is absolutely king for us. We want it to feel Jurassic, feel true to that universe," Fletcher continues. "You know, you've got Dr Ian Malcolm talking to you throughout the campaign, it's that kind of thing you need. You need that kind of touchstone to authenticity. But you want it to feel fresh, too. So we wanted to go to places we've not been before, and that global narrative just allowed us to step a bit outside of where the franchise has been."

You read that right: yes, Jeff Goldblum is once again returning to reprise his role as Ian Malcolm, who, as Fletcher touched on, will be acting as our guide and adviser throughout the campaign. While Frontier doesn't reveal any other modes we can expect to experience, everything I've seen and heard so far of the main campaign already sounds pretty ambitious in terms of scope, and promises to keep us busy with lots of dino-filled park antics. But what's perhaps most appealing about the campaign for me is the fact that it's taking more of a non-linear approach.

As you progress through the campaign and unlock new locations, attractions, and dinosaurs, you'll be able to return to any areas you've already created parks in and continually keep improving and adding to them. It immediately brings to mind the satisfying progression system baked into Two Point Museum, where I could keep on returning to museums to iterate on them when I unlocked another useful feature or kind of display. Fletcher says the decision to give players this freedom was inspired by the kind of "light metroidvania style" progression of the first Jurassic World Evolution game.

"The first game, we sort of dipped our toe into that. It had five main levels at launch, and that was part of it: you'd go to level three, you'd unlock the monorail technology, and then you could go back to level two and improve your transport rating. It had that light, sort of metroidvania kind of structure to it. And we just see a lot of potential in that and we wanted to go a bit bigger on this."

"So, the campaign is bigger than any of our previous campaigns in terms of the number of levels and the scope of it," Fletcher continues, "and I think with that, it just lends itself to that structure, because you've got even more opportunity. You've got more options as a player to jump around, and going back and improving previous parks is one thing, but you just might want a change of scenery. You know, you don't always want to play things in order."

Customization and community

Ultimately, Jurassic World Evolution 3 sounds as if it's setting out to draw from "the best bits from the first two games" while also breathing new life into the experience with a host of fresh features. As someone who's fairly new to the series myself, though, I did wonder how the team was trying to balance bringing in newcomers comfortably, while also catering to longtime fans who are looking for a more in-depth experience. Fletcher says a lot of consideration has gone into both kinds of potential player bases, and I see that first-hand in the new creative tools that are going to be introduced.

With an impressive level of customization on display that will be at our fingertips, Frontier's building tools are going to let us be as hands-on as we want when it comes to creating our parks. So, if you're a more advanced player looking to get creative, you can make up each building from scratch if you so wish, with the option to customize each individual piece of its structure – from walls, windows, ceilings, and decals – and adjust their angle, scale, and color to your liking. But for those who aren't particularly fussed about the building aspect, there are pre-made structures that you can quickly set down so you can get stuck into the management and dino goodness with ease.

There will also be new terrain manipulation tools that will let you create tiers in the landscape that give you more freedom to create enclosures that are fenced off in natural ways, such as cliff faces or higher ground. Not only that, but you can also now set down waterfalls and add deep water pools that semi-aquatic dinosaurs will actually transition in and out of as they hunt fish. Everything looks incredibly simple to use, with initial paint tools that let you easily set down foliage, mold the land, and change the look of your park.

A lot of player feedback informed the features introduced in Jurassic World Evolution 3, with Fletcher saying that "our players always crave more creative options in the game" and the team wanted to "go really big on that this time, particularly because we want to add sharing options within the game". In order to engage with the community and really celebrate what they can create, the third game will allow you to save blueprints of your buildings and parks that can then be shared on a Frontier Workshop where other players can access your designs and experience your park creations.

"When I worked on Planet Coaster, that was the thing that really startled us when that game came out [player creations]. We knew we had a lot of flexible tools, but I had no idea what people would go on to do with those," Fletcher says. "It was just staggering. So, building those foundations for Jurassic World Evolution 3 [with Frontier Workshop], it's like a whole new platform, really, for the series. It's like the start of that type of community engagement."

"We already have a lot of great streamers and YouTubers who deliver great content for the game, but it's all been a bit kind of offline, as it were," Fletcher adds. "Sharing parks between themselves and the modding community, which is fantastic, but bringing some of that flavor into the core game, so that everyone can enjoy it, everyone can see it, everyone can collaborate. Who knows what they're going to make, but I'm super excited to find out."

With a release date set for October 21, 2025 on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5, we won't have to wait much longer to see what we can do with the tools ourselves. And even though I'm something of a newcomer myself, there's so much that speaks to me, from the chance to bring baby dinosaurs to life, to the impressive amount of customization, and the many locations we'll get to play around in. I'm already looking forward to seeing what else it will let us do in the Jurassic universe this year.

Look ahead to more exciting future releases in our roundup of new games for 2025 (and beyond).