I’m noticing a trend, readers: dinosaur park sims. Frontier has been drip-feeding us Jurassic World Evolution details for months, and just last month Parkasaurus was announced. Prehistoric Kingdom is the latest game to pick up this suddenly popular torch. It’s currently on Kickstarter, with developer Shadow Raven Studios asking for $55,000. At the time of writing, its campaign has raised $24,000 and will run for another 22 days.
Shadow Raven says Prehistoric Kingdom features intricate habitat and structure building inspired by previous sims like Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis and Zoo Tycoon 2, as well as brush-based terraforming. Mod and Steam Workshop support is also planned, with unofficial mod support already available. Players can also micro-manage guest and dinosaur stats and experiment with (voila) dino DNA.
Three game modes are planned: a campaign; challenge-based scenarios; and a no-holds-barred sandbox mode. The through-line is ranger mode, which “will allow you to walk through your park as one of the park’s wardens” in any of the main modes. At first blush, ranger mode reminds me quite a lot of Pokémon Snap, which sounds pretty neat considering 50 dinosaurs are planned for launch.
That said, Prehistoric Kingdom’s biggest distinguishing quality is that you can play it for free right now. It already has a demo on Steam, which includes four dinosaurs and a few dozen decorations and buildings.
Judging from its Kickstarter reward dates, Prehistoric Kingdom is expected to release in late 2018.