Jurassic Park management game marks the film's 30th anniversary by adding nostalgic set dressing and literal poop
Yes, Jurassic Park came out 30 years ago. I'm sorry.
Frontier's dino-wrangling management game and cautionary tale about the hubris of man, Jurassic World Evolution 2, is getting a special update to mark the series' 30th anniversary (the original Jurassic Park premiered on June 9, 1993). It brings along all sorts of memorable landmarks and knick-knacks from the original film, it releases June 8, and it's free.
The update brings with it "more than 20 iconic decorative items" from the first Jurassic Park, by which it means stuff like a statue of Mr. DNA—the colourful, deoxyribonucleic mascot of the first Jurassic Park—to stand Ozymandias-like in the centre of your zoo as your staff and visitors are gored by packs of velociraptors.
There's a long roster of bits and bobs that fans will probably recognise: Stuff like the first film's power bunker, its airlock gates, and the mural from the Les Gigantes restaurant. You can hang up a "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" banner too, if your taste in decoration leans toward ominous foreshadowing. Frontier also suggests you'll be able to place the iconic "big pile of shit" from the film wheresoever your heart tells you, if your taste in decoration leans toward whatever the hell that is.
Finally, Frontier boasts that the update will include "a set of classic paths, faithfully designed to evoke their Jurassic Park counterparts," that you can use to control the flow of visitors around your dino-zoo.
Dashiell Wood seemed to have a (mostly) good time with the game in his Jurassic World Evolution 2 review, praising the suspense of constantly "waiting for the inevitable to happen". Although its management layer was fairly basic, the tension of overseeing a park that was doomed to collapse into a bloody nightmare means there really is "nothing else quite like it". It's nice, then, to see Frontier continue giving the game its due with little nostalgic updates like this.