I'm not ashamed to admit I got utterly addicted to Jurassic World Evolution when it first came out. I lost hours upon hours creating the perfect habitats for my prehistoric beauties, making sure all their needs were met and that guests in my park were having a whale of a time.
As a massive Jurassic Park fan it was an amazing experience to be able to operate my own version of the titular attraction. I was keen to try out the upcoming Jurassic World Evolution 2 when the opportunity arose to go hands-on with the game at a recent virtual press event held by developer Frontier.
Before we get into the meat of the preview, check out a selection of my gameplay below to whet your appetite.
In truth, I wasn't sure what to expect of JWE2. While its predecessor certainly wasn't perfect by any means - carrying a 69% (nice) overall score on Metacritic - it had a certain simplistic charm that let players do as they liked and left them to it. I liked that. I want to embody Richard Hammond with my park, after all. But perhaps without sparing so much expense.
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During my three or so hours with the game I was privy to two new modes out of four that will ship with the game on November 9th. Those were Campaign mode, and Challenge mode.
Campaign mode, as you'd expect, is a story that takes place after the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in which players will explore new locales away from Las Cinco Muertes from the Jurassic Park/World lore. Instead, players will be travelling far and wide to a bunch of different climates like Taiga and Desert locations, in order to protect the now wild dinosaurs.
The gameplay section had me in Washington State, tracking down and rehousing dinosaurs that had been affected by a recently, shall we say, persuasively disbanded poacher ring. Flying a helicopter to tranquilise the free dinos before rebuilding their habitat with more space, and making sure they were cared for. Constructing key operational buildings and generally just getting to grips with things.
After around 45 minutes mucking about with the new terraforming options to make them happy it was time to move on to the other mode. Admittedly, it took me far longer than I'm proud to admit to get my two Carnotaurus' comfortable in their new surroundings, but what's progress without a little struggle?
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Challenge mode really served as an introduction to the mechanics of the game, showing off the new ways of researching dinos, park upgrades and visitor essentials like shops. Taking place in the Canadian mountains, it afforded the opportunity to build both a lagoon and an aviary, though I didn't quite make it that far.
A lot of the complaints with the original game came down to the fact that much of the busywork - navigating menus, researching new stuff, finding new dinosaurs etc etc - was just so mundane. Unfortunately, it seems like Jurassic World Evolution 2 has doubled down on a lot of that menu busywork. I spent far too long handling the nitty gritty and not on actually breeding my dinosaurs. You can now hire scientists and assign them to tasks, but constantly keeping up with their progress became a chore that distracted from the fun of enjoying the park.
The game proffers "more creative, customisation and management options than ever before" which is brilliant for those who want to get into every granular detail of running a park. But it could be quite overwhelming for newcomers who just want to see some dinosaurs go rawr.
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The game's visuals are one of its strongest selling points. Jurassic World Evolution was already a beautiful game to behold, and its sequel simply capitalises on that. The final game will launch with 75 species of dinosaurs including marine and flying reptiles, and there's no doubt that each will be lovingly modelled to give aspiring paleontologists plenty to ogle.
One of the newly announced modes which we didn't get to see is called Chaos Theory. Riffing on Ian Malcolm's infamous ideas on unpredictability, it sounds equally as interesting. It will let players "relive key moments of their favourite films but with a twist. These levels are 'what if' scenarios for the player where they're in control." That's all we know presently, but if it gives me the chance to save characters like Robert Muldoon and Ray Arnold, I'm all in. Sorry Nedry, you got what you deserved.
It sounds like Jurassic World Evolution 2 has lofty goals, and plans to out-do its predecessor in every way. New modes, challenges, maps, dinosaurs, systems and more, seem to point to a future where Jurassic Park fans will be able to live out their wildest fantasies for hours on end. I just hope that by adding too much to the mixture, Frontier doesn't end up diluting it to a frustrating series of menus and research tasks. As mentioned, Jurassic World Evolution 2 will release on November 9th 2021 on Steam, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
Featured Image Credit: Frontier