It’s official, dinosaurs are In again. Saber Interactive, Universal City Studios and Amblin Entertainment have unveiled Jurassic Park: Survival, a new first-person single player action-adventure based on Spielberg’s 1993 monster movie starring a new character, InGen scientist Dr. Maya Joshi, who missed her chance to evacuate Isla Nublar alongside the movie’s cast. Classic videogame origin story – the Hollywood actors surf off into the sunset, leaving your B-team protagonist to pick up the pieces.
Dr Joshi’s loss is our gain, however. The game promises to let you “adventure through a fully realized Isla Nublar filled with reactive wildlife”, with locations ranging from the iconic park gates to the Visitor Center (beware the murals). It ain’t a shooter: you’ll rely on stealth and distraction techniques to avoid the dinosaurs, which include velociraptors, T-Rexes and dilophosauruses (those smaller, fan-faced spitty ones). Here’s a cinematic trailer to fill in the picture.
I have various questions. Firstly, do the T-Rexes key off movement, as in the film? Will we be able to avoid becoming lunch simply by standing still? Secondly, is this an action game or a horror game? It looks plenty hair-raising, but there’s no mention of “horror” on the official site.
Thirdly, does Survival feature any survival elements, and if so, is this the latter-day Tomb Raider kind of survivalism where it’s still fundamentally a corridor shooter, or more of a sandbox? Fourthly, does it have anything to do with 2001 game of the same name? And fifthly, when’s it coming out? There’s no release date on the official site just yet.
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