Jurassic World Evolution 2 is a Disappointment (Review) 

can the dinos do orange justice dance?

Man now that the game is two years old and with all the updates it’s actually an amazing game

I don't understand why they wouldn't just let everything be available in Sandbox mode straight off the bat tbh. Other tycoon games seem to have no problem doing it. So why not here? Personally, I find micromanagement pretty overwhelming, and it's a shame you can't just sit down and make whatever you want in a game you paid for. :/

One more thing, In chaos mode, you need to unlock every single thing all over again when you move on to the next mode. It is incredibly annoying.

They took what was brilliant about the first game and broke it beyond belief, if it ain't broke dont fix it

Total noob here. The game appealed to me as a veteran of other 'park building' games but frankly, the requirements to advance and the difficulty of progressing from one level of Chaos Theory or one level of Challenge Mode to the next pissed me off. Yes, I tried Sandbox mode only to find I was restricted to one map until I'd succeeded in various levels of the other game modes? No. I may give up on this game but feel hugely disappointed.

I booted JW Evolution exactly once because I just cannot play a game like this if I have to manually refill feeding stations instead of it being tied to a job like in Zoo Tycoon

I don't understand the weird idea of sandbox mode in this game. In princible, it should be a mode where everything is unlocked and you have no restrictions when it comes to gameplay and that is just how some people want to play. I just want to see all the dinos for frick sake! But this game forces you through campaign which I myself found repetetive and frustrating. And Frontier also made Planet Zoo, which has sandbox mode where everything is unlocked from the moment you purchase it. It blows my mind why they couldn't make it happen for JWE 1 and 2.

I think I have a little more understanding of what a park managers job is like. All that tedious stuff is probably what it's like in real life.

The thing that bothered me the most in the first one was the lack of animations and behaviors. I saw that they implemetend pack behaviors for raptors with the ability to attack together at once, which was something I loved in JPOG back in the days. Is it possible to make an " open " park ? like a safari ? In JPOG I used to build infrastructures on the edges of the island and make all dinos live together in a huge open space which made for some very nice interactions

The only good thing on this game is feeding the park visitors to the dinosaurs. 🤸‍♂️🦖 🤸‍♀️🦖 🤸🦖 (I may be a monster).

Challenge mode and chaos theory are ridiculous. Dinosaurs barely survive 30 minutes and just die or get sick. Its so frustrating and annoying. They should of had a more first person kind of approach. Bit ass if you ask me.

Loved the first game. VERRY dissapointed in the second one. they just HAD to make it anoying. They force us to play modes and waste time just to let us unlock dinosaurs we want. WHAT A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY

As someone who works a full time job, does some content creation, and works another job part time - I don't want to grind. I LOVE Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo. But I'm giving this a hard pass due to the grind.

Are you seriously using the backup generators instead of the power stations?

The second game absolutely sucks. If I were on the development team, I would be ashamed of the final product, and not put this on any resume.

I hated how many times I had to cure diseases and reset the power, took up 99% of my time, only 1% was making dinosaurs and having fun

Sandbox is suppost to be go crazy have fun with everything unlocked not just grind in other modes to unlock the things u need for sandbox to have fun thats not how that works they better fix this

Just completed the chaos theory; and all I can say is that I wont be playing it anymore. The scientist were such a pain to deal with & having to unlock the same perks from the last chaos theory was so tedious and annoying. Great review; there was only a few things that I liked; but I hated never getting a chance to enjoy my park.

Just bought this game few days ago, is chaos theory this fucking slow and tedious? I barely got through Jurassic park, I’m legit struggling with The lost world now Will the other ones be this bad?

will they extend the main campaign though? i finished it in like, 8 hours. the first game took me around 2 weeks to finish

It's unplayable on ps4 pro! Constant crashes! Game breaking bugs! What a mess! Iv lost all faith in the gaming industry! And will wait for any other game to be fully finished before I buy a game again! It upset me more 😪 As this was a birthday present for my daughter who loved the last one!

For the sandbox stuff, I actually kinda agree. I'm still confused how to unlock everything. So ima prob just search up a tutorial.

I would love a return to how Zoo Tycoon (2) worked, just in a grid based system. For some reason I got more natural looking zoo's in Zoo tycoon than I've ever been able to in Planet Zoo. (Unless I want to spend 5 years of my time on 1 zoo and not have fun) I think the wonky road system, mixed with the exhibits doesnt work too well. Both Planet Zoo and Jurassic World Evolution offer great visuals but a lack in having fun in the game. Most of what you're doing is busy work on useless things instead of thinking of how to improve the zoo, thinking of what new animals you want etc. (Also I just want a remaster of zoo tycoon 2, that game did so many things right. E.g. make a limited amount of (extra) things which are locked behind challenges, most to everything is freely placeable in sandbox)

Frontier also made Planet Coaster - in sandbox you have everything unlocked from the beginning. Yet here, they make most things unlocked.

one of the most annoying things I’ve experienced is that in my challenge world, every times dinosaur would sleep or lay down, It would wake up and stop moving, I tranquillized them and moved them, it didn’t fix it, so they stayed still till they died, they die and the fall, And all the dinosaurs could just walk through concrete fences, and the aviary was useless, The flyers get stuck and can also fly through the top of the aviary, It’s just not a very good game. The marine dinosaurs are the best part I think, The marine dinos are cool but the enclosures aren’t customizable sadly. They also don’t glitch much, but since the game is a new release, It will probably get bug fixes. H o p e f u l l y . Oh yeah and something else, all the dinosaurs with social groups and combat ability, will fight each other constantly for alpha status, and each time they fight, the loser will always have an injury, That almost immediately kills them unless you get it to the medical facility, But they fight constantly, and I have to keep them alive instead of actually having fun, but I did all the hard things and sandbox is great, it’s chill, better than the rest of the game.

I just got this and I'm not happy at the fact you need to build everything, how about premade parks for the ones who either don't have time or people who just want to control a park, it just feels like a chore TBH lol

Jurassic world evolution 1 its day and night different between launch status compared to now. Bet the same goes with this one.

I played JWE2 for a few hours and just gave up and went back to the first game. To me, it's worse in nearly every way. 1. Ranger teams lost many abilities including tranq'ing and medicating. Now those are assigned to the boring-looking medical team. 2. Dinosaurs needing medical attention non-stop is a drag. 3. Unlocking Dinosaurs is slow and tedious. 3. You no longer can refill herbivore feeders. Some may like this but I miss it, it was fun roaming in the 93 JP Jeep and refilling feeders. 4. Foliage/biomes just don't look as good. The beautiful greens of the first game are replaced with what looks like a unkempt yard. 5. The whole managing scientists thing is tedious and not fun. 6. You can now just drive through all foliage and trees, taking out any kind realism or fun imo. There's probably more but I'm forgetting them at the moment. Such a disappointing sequel imo.

I see there is no workshop on Steam, is the game mod friendly ?

Have you taken a look at DorfRTS? It's still very much a work in progress but it looks very promising

Very smooth images there from Jurassic World! How did you manage that?

As a person who 100% chaos theory, campaign and is working on unlocking everything on challenge mode, skip this one if you want to unlock everything for sandbox. It will take quite a bit of time to do so. Also, sandbox settings are a bit lacking atm, so definitely don't buy before they update the game with more sandbox settings.

Glad to see someone else talking about this, really tried to like this game and loved 1, got over 150hrs in the campaign mode in the first one. What wasted potential they couldnt be arsed to write a new story. How can they mess this one up so much. Great review 👍

Hopefully they put some patches out to iron out the kinks; sounds like there is a great game in there as you said. Will be keeping my eye on it.

did they ever fix the micromanagement and bugs? i was interested but all that tedius micro sounds lame af.

I wish this game was made with Amphibian DNA so we can edit it to something... better.

Great review. I have to say that sadly the 1st game was better. Campaign here is far too short. The scientists feature in the new game feels like a poor attempt at making the game more complex. It gets annoying, boring and detracts from actually enjoying the core dinosaur park game. You said it right, it’s ‘busy work masquerading as mechanical depth’. The developers could have focussed more on features to enhance the fun of building and running a dinosaur park but instead we are managing people and fuel (every second of the day). One or two minor improvements in this new version granted (fences and paths), but the 1st game was much better overall. This is a missed opportunity. Now uninstalled.

Another disappointment :/ Well there is still Prehistoric Kingdom next year.

I just asked for a refund, i couldnt even start the campaign without awful textures errors and black flickering of the shadows all around the sky, and btw my PC meets the minimum requirements, already messed around with the settings and did everything recommended to fix the issue but nothing worked so yea pretty disapponting

This is the second game I've seen loading up the GPU to the point where even decoding a RU-vid video gets broken. The other being Trackmania 2020. I wonder what these games do similarly that causes that.

Is it still a disappointment since the update? I personally have been playing more since it launched with the new update.

Ridiculously difficult and time consuming. Most people will play a couple hours and never play again

A game that was considered bad and was a disappointment when it was realesed, and now, in 2023, everyone likes the game now, and now it's considered to be a good or great game in 2023

As someone who just played JWE1 and JWE2 back to back via GamePass, this review is spot on. Really ended up enjoying the first one, issues and all. I was excited for the second one with the inclusion of air/sea dinosaurs. Those new additions (and the time control options!) are great and no real problems. But as this review mentions, the new 'management/research additions' are such a huge let down. It feels these things were also fleshed out to create more filler for the game, but just comes across as incredibly tedious without really adding anything to the gameplay. Pile that on with the numerous bugs and you have a personal gaming experience that was a real letdown for me.

Jurassic world evolution 2 was much better than the disappointment of the first Jurassic world evolution. At least Jurassic world evo 2 isn’t just Pokémon with dinosaurs. In Jurassic world evolution, it’s literally just spinosaurus standing on the left, and edmontossurus standing on the right. Spinosaurus just says “Ok edmontosaurus, I let u hit me and I hit u back deal?” And then after spino hits, Edmont says the same thing. The first Jurassic world evolution was terrible. Yes, with most of not ALL dinosaurs, it’s a 1 hit kill in JWE2, but at least it has good fighting, good graphics and good movement.

Good review. I loved the first game, but its full cost with the DLC's if you bought them as they came out was waaaaay too high. I'm sure this will be great in 2023, patched, bundled with 3-4 DLC's and at a discount. Will happily wait till then.

I really liked the first game. I enjoyed the sweet spot of having non stressful challenges. Sandbox is just not for me because I cannot motivate myself and get bored. After I stressful day of work I also don't want to get stressed while gaming. So yeah...I will skip this one

This is honestly a pretty good review overall. Although I really like this game, I can totally agree with you that it feels like you never have to time to actually look at your dinosaurs. Plus, how you HAVE to unlock everything for sandbox is really annoying. All I’ve been doing with the game for like the past two or so weeks has been completing all the modes and unlocking all the dinosaurs I need to. I also surprised by how the game was glitching a bunch. I haven’t experienced any bugs or glitches at all really, maybe some lag here or there, yet I’m playing it on an Xbox one. But yeah, still prefer this game to the original(probably cause I never bought any of the DLC for that game and the new one has all the DLC dinos).

I was extremely close to completing chaos theory jurassic park, but a bug ruined the whole thing and made me lose hours of progress. I got mad and haven’t played the game since.

This game literally feels like it should have been a dlc update for JWE 1

It is nearly unplayable on Series X - "optimized" my ass... Massive framerate drops all the time.

I think you've put together a good review, with lots of fair and worthwhile observations, but there's an extent to which I need to disagree with your assessment. Now, granted, I'm one of those people who really enjoyed Operation Genesis and Evolution 1 just because they are a JP management game. I love park sims and I love JP, so I enjoyed the games despite their flaws. Despite the extent to which you're right about the busy work here, there are numerous meaningful improvements over the first game. Just the path building mechanics alone are a huge relief (evolution was dreadful at snapping paths in bad ways). I think that if someone enjoyed Evolution then they will enjoy this even more. I haven't had any of these graphical issues, I had a steam disk write failure, which was a major hassle, but nothing in-game. I'm a big Dino nerd, so I'm a particular audience, but these dinosaurs are beautiful (if conspicuously fatherless) and I think that quite a few people will be happy with full price, and a large number will be happy when it is discounted.

Arghhh!! I hate when people say stuff is "Too Easy", or "No Real Challenge." I'm the kinda guy that wants to enjoy the ride, rather than rip my effing hair out, due to a super difficult game. I never got that mentality for these people; are they gluttons for punishment or something?? If I'm screaming at the TV, that kinda of ruins the enjoyment for me. I want a fun, fair challenge rather than a blood boiling one that I can't figure out. I dunno, this sounds like they've over-complicated a working formula. I'll probably just stick with the original Evolution!!

So still keep going with JPOG.Thanks man.

9:00 don't be silly Zade, that's what DLCs, expansion packs, game packs, stuff packs and experience packs are for.

Oh how I wish Parkasaurus looked like JWE2, would be the ultimate dino sim. This game is so shallow, most of the mechanics consists of adding 2 single digit numbers

Got this recently with a steam sale. I LOVED the original. It was fun, interesting, and a great 'Wake up and have coffee' with game. I enjoyed the simplicity, but did desire some, and I mean SOME of the new features. Like being able to move dinos from a hatchery via airlift without having to tranquilize them first. However like I said in my steam review. "I paid money to take care of Dinosaurs not Scientists!" LOL

I think that the campaign was short but fun and that the game was more complex with the scientists, there being more variety in the dinosaur aspect and I have spent more time on chaos theory then I have on the campaign mode, one thing that I didn’t like was how in sandbox you had to do research and still have the scientists overall I think this game is just a bit better then the first. I haven’t even completed the first let alone the second because I got both games within six months, I think this game is a bit better, not much but a bit better then the first.

Flickering dinos getting stuck and the draw distance really need to be fixed first

Game is pretty good imo but the sandbox is atrocious between missing setting options to the unlock system to the horrid maps it’s just such a let down which sucks since it’s supposed to be the most fun and replay able part of the game

Idk about you but on the xbox 1 the games graphics are actually terrible. Is there any way yo fix this because it's worse than evolution1

I would love this game but the crashes that shut down my xbox one S is to much for me

My only problem with both of the games is when it comes to the maps and sandbox we still don't have Island Creations or having the map be extended to all over the Island instead of just being limited to a Section of the island which I'm still Disappointed at really. I hope they do a Jurassic World Evolution 3 and fix these kind of problems or add and fix these problems too Jurassic World Evolution 2

I personally have not experienced many glitches like the ones shown in this review, the glitches I have encountered have been minor, and didn't affect the quality of the gameplay. Maybe things like your graphics settings could be to blame for more of your visual glitches.

Let's be real. JWE2 is just a a big and overpriced DLC for the JWE1, which they marketed it as a new game, a "sequel", to squeeze more money out of the JW/JP license Frontier has.

Jurassic Park Park Builder came out on the GBA at the same time as the PS2 game.

This game looks like something others would like But for me no I really hate how everything in sandbox needs to be unlocked I just want to hop on and make a dinosaur park but no I gotta sit threw a long story mode and yes it’s easy but it takes agesssssss and I don’t have time for that! This is my option so don’t be they guy who just gets mad at my choice if you like the game good for you.

I just want to know if Jeff Goldblum is the narrator again here. If not, I’ll pass big time.

Are you gonna update your review as things get better with patches and dlc? The gsme is already more manageble thanks for the slight automatization of the ranger and medical vans

i hated all the challenges and to add insult to injury you have to pay for some of those challenges

I love this game but it’s hard to decide wether or not I like the first game more and that’s just wrong…my least favorite thing about this game by far is what they did with the herbivore habitat needs. It’s so annoying! “Needs more ground leaf” I add more. “Needs more forest” I add more. “Needs more ground leaf” WTF

The first is better I’m opinion because it’s not so hard like bro I just want all the water creatures that’s why I spent 60 dollars

I feel like the newer updates have greatly improved this game, there are better decor, sandbox options and buildings. Also the DLCs are fantastic!

This entire review was a disappointment; more than the game itself--why can't we have a critical reviewer willing to properly deconstruct the madness that is Jurassic World Evolution and its creators at Frontier?

please make an updated review

I'm 50 hours in 100% done the campaign 60% done Chaos Theory. Payed £25 for it. I bought the game for the Sandbox gameplay and not even touched that yet. It's nowhere near as detailed in terms of getting creative as Planet Zoo is. I don't like the Amenities they just feel like rabbit hole buildings which break imersion somewhat. On the plus side it's a very enjoyable experience to play through each film. The visuals and animations are truly stunning. I feel I have already had my moneys worth so I'm quite pleased. I'm a bit worried that the sandbox mode will fall a bit flat. I am however predicting I will get 80-100 hours out of the whole game, which for £25 isn't bad. It's a 7.5/10 so far for me could rise to maybe 8/10 if the sandbox made offers the gameplay I want.

TBH, the JWE duology is one of the most frustrating game franchises for me, i have regerts.

Try it with the new update

There are so many things I like about this game, but I image there is double the amount of stuff that I don’t like about this game the likes. For me, I would give this game maybe a 7/10 if it weren’t for bugs. The bugs I’ve encountered while playing this game have been reaching up into the hundreds and have been absolutely ruining the experience for me, multiple occasions bringing me very close to uninstalling and deeming it as a waste of cash. I hope Frontier doesn’t focus on just making it better and I rather they focus on fixing the probably hundreds of bugs in the game. Here’s a list of some of those that I’ve encountered through my 2 months of gameplay. Marine reptiles glitching through lagoon walls and starving to death Interlocked species that like each other attacking and killing each other Dinosaurs starving themselves Pterosaurs and dinosaurs getting stuck in place Soundless Aviary Teleporting dinosaurs, marine reptiles and pterosaurs Dinosaurs glitching through fences Pterosaurs flying through aviary walls and starving to death Buildings not constructing Building upgrades being inaccessible in spite being unlocked in Chaos Theory or Challenge Mode Vet treatments not doing anything Rangers getting stuck on nothing Transport helicopters glitching in place Thanks to bullshit like this I give the game a 4/10.

Yeah didn’t even know this was a thing hoss.

If this game can't play at 60fps then i don't want to play it!

Why the meow can't they just make it like JPOG I loved playing it, it was simple but very enjoyable and it had some good missions too! :'3

I already unlocked all this stuff in JWE 1. Not interested in starting all over again.

JWE2 makes me so tired ocmpared to jwe1 with how repetitive it is on top of being tedious. It's such a good game both mechanics and animations wise. But man does it really start to grain on you running through challenge levels and chaos theory and having to complete restart the even more monotonous aspects every single run to see new dinos rather then focusing on one shared progression.

Oh...im skipping it then.

In sorry but operation genius might be old but it is still more fun with more content and detailed loved the video though

Great review

This game on xbox and ps is just unplayable. Graphics are horrible and blurry. Frontier plz optimize

Gists? Iggs? What accent/dialect is that? Iggscavate?

Frontier always want the games they make to have excessive grind. 2 words. Elite Dangerous

i respect your opinion but i believe when maybe 2 or 3 more patches come out for this game you can maybe give us your thoughts after and see if the opinion has changed like alot of youtubers are doing with nascar 21 ignition (and that game is dogshit)

Most of the problema You just said. They already dices it

So you're telling me that my old ass 1050ti can run this game better then whatever the hell you're using?

Fun Factor of this game was a -10. I wish saw this honest review before buying it. Other reviewers who recommended this game should be ashamed of themselves for selling out.

A shame because the first game is great

I dont get this hatred about play-to-earn mentality lmao. You said it yourself that the levels are basically just tutorials, so not playing the tutorials, you wont know anything you need to do when playing the sandbox anyway. If they take that out and leave everything unlocked, you all probably complain that there's nothing to do. This is literally how'd archivement in games used to be, jesus christ, not enough big "skip" button to bypass the tutorials with irl money? I'm glad I downloaded a script to view dislikes again, because seeing 1/6 of people disliking is good enough metrics for me. Go play your phone games, Zade, leave the tycoon games for the big boys lol.

The only thing better about the second game is the graphics. 😂

This game is trash and im glad more agree.

Operation Genesis tho 🤤 what a masterpiece!