Published , by Donovan Erskine
Published , by Donovan Erskine
With the Jurassic World franchise soon to receive its latest installment with Jurassic World Dominion, new content is coming to Jurassic World Evolution 2 in celebration. The Dominion Biosyn expansion adds a new campaign experience as well as several new species of dinosaurs for players to add to their parks. I got to check out the new content prior to its official release with the team at Frontier.
In Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Biosyn, players work to establish a new facility for Biosyn Genetics, another company in the Dinosaur engineering business that competed with InGen in the original books. The Biosyn facilities had different looks from the ones seen in the original game. This includes the science center, research post, hatchery, and staff center. This DLC also adds a new way to connect and transfer power underground, allowing me to properly distribute electricity around the park without placing a million generators and towers.
The new BioSyn campaign sees not only the return of Bryce Dallas Howard to voice Claire Dearing, but the addition of a couple other Jurassic legends as well. Sam Neill and Laura Dern appear to reprise their roles as Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler (respectively). It’s nice having the iconic founding members of the franchise along for the latest journey.
Dominion Biosyn adds new dinosaurs for players to add to their park and manage. This includes the Pyroraptor, a feathered dinosaur that also appears in the upcoming film. I was able to genetically engineer a batch of Pyroraptors at the hatchery after mining for amber and gathering DNA. The expansion also adds the Dimetrodon, Therizinosaurus, Dreadnoughtus, and Giganotosaurus. Not only is it cool to check out the new species and learn their traits, it’s fun to test and see how they interact with other dinos. It also opens up the gene pool for more experimenting in the hatchery, which you can easily sink several hours into.
Jurassic World Evolution 2 also makes some solid quality-of-life improvements with the Dominion Biosyn expansion. A new hyperloop system allows staff to quickly move around the park, solving one of the bigger frustrations of having a large facility with a lot of workers. There are also new research posts that allow dinosaurs to be safely observed without having to worry about the aggressive creatures in the bunch. Arguably the neatest addition is that of invisible fences. They function just the same as standard fences, keeping dinosaurs away from guests and each other, but are completely underground. It makes the parks much more visually pleasing. Especially for someone like me, who can never find a neat way to structure the enclosements.
Players that enjoyed the Chaos Theory mode in the base game will have more to chew on in the new DLC. More “what if” scenario missions have been added, taking players to the brand new Sierra Nevada location to play out storylines inspired by the new film. Though I didn’t have the chance to play the new scenarios, Chaos Theory was a highlight of the vanilla release and I look forward to diving in.
Jurassic World Evolution 2 was a more than solid dinosaur park manager according to our review, and the newest batch of content will only expand upon that experience. Fans will be able to sink their teeth into Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Biosyn when it launches on June 14, 2022.
These impressions are based an early build of the game provided by the publisher. Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Biosyn launches on June 14 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC for $19.99 USD.