JWE3 stands confidently as the definitive Jurassic Park building simulator, high above the first iteration of the series mechanically and with much more campaign-based content compared to the sequel. JWE2 saw many small changes adding to the experience, all of which return for this version, including a few extras.
It's easier to autonomously take care of facilities as your park grows allowing your attention to go towards the main goals of a mission or to create whatever additions to the park you want. You do still need to think about dinosaur habitation over time, so it's not like you can forget about them forever. With the addition of nests and baby dinosaurs comes a whole new level of habitation comfort, be it for a nest in the first place, the infant's space as it matures, and the cohabitation constraints a family unit puts on the rest of an enclosure's occupants. These aren't taken care of automatically or popped up at you until things get hostile between dinos or dangerous for guests, so it's worth checking to see if everyone's happy and healthy every once and a while. It's a nice mix of allowing the bulk of the micromanaging to be taken care of by the automatic systems (that you still need to put in place properly) while still requiring your oversight for things to stay afloat.
The Campaign of JWE3 follows up JWE2 (for those who liked the characters and story there) along with the whole Jurassic World Trilogy. JWE2 finished up it's DLC run a bit after Dominion, so this felt like it was going to be the finale to this 'World' era for the Jurassic franchise. While we know that isn't the case, with Rebirth DLC even added to this very game, this still feels like a heartfelt finale to that era in a sense. We get to check out how dinosaurs are doing across the globe as people learn to coexist and businesses try to make money. We become a decision maker at DIN, a company that helps smaller companies manage their dinosaur facilities in however way they want, so long as it's legal. We go from failed John Hammond impersonators to medical facilities to dinosaur humane sites. It feels like we're getting a bigger glimpse at the world Fallen Kingdom and Dominion left us, and while this isn't as thrilling of an experience as a movie, it's still very cool to see play out pseudo-canonically. My biggest concern going in was the runtime considering I knocked out JWE2's campaign in a single sitting, functioning less as a "Campaign" and more like a tutorial. Thankfully, I can tell you that the campaign easily surpasses 15 hours even if you're bee-lining, roughly 25 if you're going for full 5 stars per site like I did. You still get the tutorials about how the game works, but they do it by separating different park styled missions with specific mechanics, eventually giving you the freedom to mesh those together in the later unlocked missions. You'll find yourself gliding through the menus to place the amenities you need, checking genomes for traits and needs that match other dinos in your park, and prepping areas for enclosures you've been brainstorming since the last site. It's easily the best of the three games at teaching and rewarding your game knowledge as you progress, which both feels satisfying and to me shows a good campaign, especially in a management game like this.
Unfortunately, the storyline presented in the campaign completely flubs it by removing interesting tension with no major changes to the scenario, even when other missions do so sometimes rapidly. The "hidden reveal" is seen a mile away, and almost revealed jokingly as if that could save the simple plot. I'm not expecting anything really groundbreaking (or really much beyond "Good job, intern! Now grab me another coffee"), but the attempt followed by this shallow end just feels bleh.
After the campaign ends you can still go for a full 5 stars map (Ian Malcolm gave me a compliment!), try out the challenge mode if you want more restrictions on site builds, or go for whatever you want in sandbox. I do wish Chaos Theory was here, as that felt like the bulk of the 'Campaign' JWE2 was missing. I much prefer this stronger campaign to it going towards a second mode similar to challenge mode, but it is one of the few glaring omissions that hopefully shows up in some capacity.
TLDR; JWE3 has a ton of content to play around with and a Campaign that both works as a great teaching platform but also somewhere you can slowly learn to express your skill and game knowledge, preparing you for further challenges in the missions given and later Challenge mode. The new baby dinosaurs and behaviors add a new layer to enclosure building, forcing you to think about future plans for the enclosure long-term. Though the story is a bit weaker even considering the genre, I think this is the definitive Jurassic Park/World management game, setting itself apart from it's predecessors enough to justify the fresh title.
