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I've spent more time in Frontier games than I'd like to admit. Jurassic World Evolution was my introduction, but Planet Zoo became a full-blown obsession - 800+ hours across two Steam accounts.
While I loved Jurassic World Evolution, I bounced off the sequel fairly quickly after tasting Planet Zoo's piece by piece freedom, with all its joys and hardships. Not that I'm particularly good at building or finishing projects - I've yet to complete a single zoo without demolishing it 80 hours in because everything suddenly feels *wrong*.
But with the Jurassic World Evolution series' latest installment, Jurassic World Evolution 3, Frontier have finally hit that Jurassic World Evolution-Planet Zoo hybrid park builder sweet spot.
Gameplay: Still Jurassic World Evolution at Heart
If you've played any Jurassic World Evolution before, the core gameplay mechanics will feel immediately familiar. You'll still build enclosures, unlock dig sites, extract DNA, incubate dinosaurs, manage their requirements, oversee staff and guests, and pray your fences hold when storms roll through.
The major twist this time is the introduction of the breeding system and sexual dimorphism. Unlike previous instalments' all-female approach, you can now have male and female dinosaurs across 80+ species, though some like Scorpios rex remain female-only. Baby dinosaurs roam the enclosures, and the addition of male and female colour variants, along with inheritable genetic traits, gives your parks genuine biodiversity. You also have access to contraceptives if your dinosaur population gets out of hand.
And let's be honest: baby dinosaurs are so ridiculously cute.
There are the standard Campaign, Sandbox and Challenge game modes - no Chaos Theory from Jurassic World Evolution 2 - with Campaign doubling as an extended tutorial, fine for easing new players in, but the real fun begins in Sandbox mode. Whether you pick custom, creative, or standard, Sandbox is where Jurassic World Evolution 3 really shines, and you can easily lose yourself for hours.
Building & Terraforming: Finally Matching the Planet Series
Building freedom is where Jurassic World Evolution 3 makes its biggest evolutionary leap. You can now build from scratch - walls, floors, trims, roofs, planters, decals, everything is under your control - if you want to. There are still building presets you can work with if you don't really care all that much about customisation on that level, but the overall improvement from Jurassic World Evolution 2 is staggering. I spent nearly an hour just testing different wall variations and sort of mentally cataloguing which pieces work well together.
Object scaling, XYZ rotation, flexicolour customisation and the sheer amount of object options all give you the tools to make your park really unique. Think Planet Zoo meets Prehistoric Kingdom, and it's been implemented beautifully. Also a major plus is that natural terrain can also act as barriers, so you don’t have to rely on fences alone to keep your guests and dinosaurs safe, and it makes a huge difference in making the overall environment feel more authentic.
Terrain sculpting has been massively improved, and deep-water mechanics and auto-generated waterfalls are newly introduced. Waterfalls look great when they don't turn into waterfall spaghetti.
And then there's the integrated Frontier Workshop, a godsend, that lets you browse, download, and place community-made blueprints directly in-game if you need inspiration or just want to populate your park quickly without spending hours on a single building.
The island generation system is a solid addition, allowing you to customise the overall geographical design, set mountains, trees, and water, then tweak the generated result. It's cool, certainly, but it didn't blow me away. My issue is that once you've placed trees and mountains during generation, you can adjust them on the actual map anyway, so these options feel somewhat redundant unless you plan to leave the terrain untouched while building. I probably would have preferred a more hands-on approach where you can generate the island and immediately modify it with terrain tools on the same screen.
Still, it's a welcome feature to introduce variety and make your parks more personal.
Park Management: Half Evolved
In terms of management, beyond dinosaurs, you'll need to oversee your staff and guests. There's some staff automation to help as your park grows, but even early on, I found the staff AI a bit unreliable, with vehicles colliding into one another to the point where I'd rather just fix the fence myself or pick up whatever the task they're performing, which is only fun for the first ten times or so.
Guest management specifically is where Jurassic World Evolution 3 falls short for me. New attractions like the Cretaceous Cruise, Hot Air Balloon Tours, and Petting Zoo add variety to guest entertainment options, giving you more options beyond traditional viewing galleries and gyrospheres, but overall there's a lack of real management depth - no complaints about cleanliness, no "I didn't come here to see the staff facilities!" whining. It's ironic: I used to hate those systems in Planet Zoo, yet now I miss them here. They gave the illusion that your visitors actually cared. And to be fair, if I were paying for the ultimate dinosaur experience, I'd want it to feel as wild as possible.
I also loved squeezing every penny out of visitors in Planet Zoo. And yes, I'm the monster who bumps up child ticket prices when little Tommy complains about stuff no child would ever actually worry about. That sort of micromanagement joy and frustration is missing here. You do get guest satisfaction metrics - food, rest, transport, accommodation, dinosaur safety - you can tweak shop products and features. It’s there, but the economic layer still feels fairly surface-level.
For builders, Jurassic World Evolution 3 is paradise, but for pure management sim fans, it’s not bad bad, but still may be a bit light. To be fair, there might be some Universal IP constraints limiting Frontier’s freedom here, but it’s hard not to imagine how adding more elements from Planet series’ management side of things could go a long way in making Jurassic World Evolution 3 perhaps the most complete and well-rounded Frontier title to date.
Visuals: My Dinosaur Gladiator Arena
To properly assess the animation quality, I naturally had to build a dinosaur battle arena. My scientific method involved cramming 60+ dinosaurs into one sandbox map to see who'd emerge victorious. Top three: Spinosaurus, Scorpios rex, Stegoceratops. To my genuine disappointment, Scorpios rex won by poisoning everyone and running away. Absolute coward. Stegoceratops was my winner.
That aside, the level of detail is genuinely impressive. Dinosaur textures are stunning, animations are smooth and fluid, and with dinosaurs now forming family groups, there are some really adorable moments between juveniles and their parents.
When combined with the game's environmental presentation, Jurassic World Evolution 3 is simply beautiful. There are a total of 18 maps, including both campaign and legacy locations - two of which are Isla Nublar. They are either small, medium, or large in size, with some unusual shapes, but there's no doubt that all are visually striking, ranging from deserts and tropical islands to cherry-blossom valleys in Japan.
What's undeniable is that the game looks phenomenally better than previous entries, and what I'm genuinely excited about is watching my favourite Frontier builders tackle Jurassic World Evolution 3. (ZSHplays, I'm looking at you.)
Final Thoughts
Jurassic World Evolution 3 feels like Frontier finally looked at its two crowds - the Jurassic kids and the meticulous park builders - and said: "Fine. You both win."
Yes, modular building might intimidate some. Yes, the park management aspect is still somewhat basic. But the game feels like a huge improvement visually and mechanically, delivering a genuinely satisfying hybrid of Planet Zoo and Jurassic World Evolution gameplay.
The Good
Full modular building system- Improved terrain tools with deep water mechanics and waterfalls
- Breeding system and dinosaur social behaviours
- Stunning visuals and detailed dinosaur designs
The Bad
Guest management feels a bit shallow- Staff automation struggles
- Island generation could use more options
