The Epic Store’s Latest Free Game Gets You Up Close With A T. Rex
Life finds a way.
The Jurassic Park series has had its fair share of video game adaptations going all the way back to the 1993 NES title. As you might imagine, most of these games put players in the shoes of guests or scientists fighting for their lives during one of the park’s extremely common dinosaur outbreaks. But this week, the Epic Games Store is giving away a game that lets you play as Jurassic Park’s unsung heroes (or, arguably, villains), the park’s designers.
Management sims don’t necessarily need the most exciting subject matter to be fun, and great games have been made about running zoos and universities. Still, it’s hard to argue against dinosaurs taking things to another level. Jurassic World Evolution 2 might not be the most robust park management game, but despite being based on the abysmal Jurassic World films, roaming dinosaurs make it a uniquely exciting sim.
Jurassic World Evolution 2 is a streamlined management sim for dino lovers.
Compared to similar games, Jurassic World Evolution 2 is pretty lightweight. For better or worse, much of the genre’s usual busywork is gone. You won’t need to balance ticket prices for maximum profits or monitor individual guests’ enjoyment levels. You don’t need to worry about hand-picking staff to run the place, and what employees you do have pretty much take care of themselves. For hardcore sim fans, Evolution 2 can be a little too hands-off, but its streamlining also makes it appealing to a casual audience.
Of course, its real draw is the dinosaurs, which Evolution 2 delivers in spades. A short campaign introduces the game’s mechanics and prepares you for better modes that put the dinos front and center. A sandbox mode lets you build to your heart’s content, while a challenge mode requires you to complete certain tasks on a timer. The latter pushes your management skills, while the sandbox is worth checking out if you’re just there for the dinosaurs.
Jurassic World Evolution 2 has more than 70 dinosaur species, each with its own behaviors and needs. Individual dinosaurs also have unique traits, which could necessitate special care because they’re more prone to disease or fighting their siblings. Dinos form social groups, mark their territory, and generally act enough like real animals to make just watching them joyful in a way your childhood self imagined after seeing Jurassic Park. The easy park management is something of a blessing in sandbox mode, as it lets you spend more time with your dinos and ensure they’re having the best time a clone of an extinct species can have.
Getting up close with all kinds of dinosaurs is the best part of Jurassic World Evolution 2.
As pleasant as it can be to simply vibe with your dinosaur buddies, Chaos Theory mode is clearly the star of Jurassic World Evolution 2. It features multiple scenarios based on the Jurassic Park films, putting you in the middle of a park that’s either in crisis or just about to be. Part of the appeal here is nostalgia for the days when the movies weren’t terrible, but this is also where Jurassic World Evolution 2 gets the most mechanically complex. You’ll need to have a good handle on how to repair fences and subdue rampaging raptors to succeed, and you’ll be rewarded with cameos from the franchise’s actors for your trouble.
Jurassic World Evolution 2 isn’t terribly sophisticated, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s best viewed as a way to take care of digital dinos or reliving the best moments from the Jurassic Park films, two activities where its lack of depth hardly matters. Whether you’re trying to prevent dinosaur attacks or actively encourage them, Jurassic World Evolution 2 might be the casual park sim for you.
