Frontier has released a brand new update for Jurassic World Evolution. According to the developers, update 1.4 is full of new features such as a Challenge Mode, which allows you to play through the story with limited money and additional difficulties, as well as new and highly requested Sandbox features such as lifespan and feeder resupply toggles.

The team has added new lighting options (which unlock when you’ve achieved 5 stars in Career Mode), Korean and Italian language support, and new Contracts for more variety.

Update 2.4 also fixes memory leak with crowd system, increases likelihood of world music triggering, packs performance improvements for lowest quality settings, tweaks billboard trees so the can be more accurate in colour and brightness and fixes an occasional crash on shutdown in Windows.

This major update will be auto-downloaded from Steam the next time you launch its client, and you can find its huge changelog below.

Jurassic World Evolution Update 2.4 Release Notes

New Content/Features

• Added a new Challenge Mode
  • Added difficulty settings – including Jurassic difficulty
  • Island rating based unlock flow
  • Set on Isla Nublar
  • Contract difficulty guided by island rating
  • Disease selection is based on the availability of research for cures
  • Added Hammond Foundation fees
  • Added contract cancellation penalties
  • Added reputation decay (to Challenge mode only)
  • Added skins for completion for first time and add 5 star completion
  • Add Personal Best completion times
  • Added lighting preset options
  • Show a warning message if a player with no saves of any type tries to start Challenge mode. We suggest that they play Campaign mode first
  • Added a separate challenge mode autosave
  • Increased the cost of ranger teams in challenge mode
  • Added ‘par’ times for each difficulty level
  • Added research completion time scaling for difficulty levels
  • Updated front end menu
• Added new Sandbox options
  • Dinosaurs dying of old age toggle
  • Toggle for contracts being active – does not affect reputation
  • Can now set cash levels for sandbox (Low, Medium, High, Unlimited)
  • Difficulty settings for:
    • Dinosaur variety difficulty
    • Dinosaur rating difficulty
    • Guest count difficulty
    • Economic difficulty (ticket price and lawsuits)
  • Toggle if feeders need resupplying
  • Unlimited power toggle added
• Added new contract types
  • Have a dinosaur of a specified species beat another dinosaur of a specific species
  • Improve Guest Shelter Coverage to at least X%
  • Improve Dinosaur Visibility to at least X%
  • Dinosaur rating to at least X%
  • Profit/Income per minute for X attraction
  • Reach overall attraction profit/income
• Dinosaur updates
  • Resizing
    • Spinosaurus
    • Giganotosaurus
    • Tyrannosaurus rex
    • Carnotaurus
  • Carnivores will now hunt according to their food need (except hybrids who will still engage any available foe) so they do not constantly hunt
  • Added dinosaur bio information to the Genome Library
  • Animation tweaks to tidy up issues from resizing various dinosaurs
  • Audio tweaks to match resized dinosaurs
• Added new localisation
  • Italian
  • Korean
• Added lighting settings unlock for career islands (unlocked at 5 stars)
• New cameras
  • Added viewing cameras to the hotel, viewing gallery and viewing platform exteriors
  • Added first-person camera to monorail train. Positioned at a height above the train that will go over stations
  • Added a ride camera to the Gyrosphere
  • Added an option to the gameplay settings to not force the camera to move closer to a building when it’s selected
• Added functionality to reset all genes in the gene splicer. Press Y button or R key to revert all the genes to default, after a confirmation popup
• Added shortcut to research items from upgrade and build menus
• Added support to cancel a research project
• Added option to cancel an incubation
• Added some new achievements
  • Earn 5 Stars on Jurassic Difficulty Challenge Mode
  • Reach 5 Stars in Challenge Mode for the first time (any difficulty)
  • Finish Challenge mode in Under 3 hours (Medium difficulty or above)

General Fixes/Tweaks
Buildings

• Fix guests not being able to walk in and out of the hotel
• Fixed damaged concrete walls creating a seam
• Fixed dirt around pillars preventing monorail tracks from being deleted
• Stop dinosaurs from walking through large planters
• Added dinosaur visibility to hotels
• Added guest interaction interaction points to hotels
• Prevent satisfaction and capacity spikes when closing a park
• Added audio feedback for a Power Station going offline/online
• Added option to disable the camera focusing on the selected building

Camera

• Tidied up cameras to reduce intersection during movement
• Camera fixes for looking at dinosaurs eating from feeders

Contracts

• Fixed hidden contract notifications
• Don’t allow sabotage types if there aren’t any applicable targets
• Prevent multiple division picker notifications from being queued if you spam the A button fast enough on the “Request Contract” button
• Scale cash reward for all contracts with paramaterized genomes proportional to the cost of incubating a dinosaur with that genome (at the current genome completion level)
• Scale cash rewards for building construction contracts by the cost of the building requested
• Fixed display of time remaining until another contract can be requested
• Added more intro and outro VO
• Swapped some VO lines to make sure they are assigned to the correct division

Dinosaurs

• Quality pass on dinosaur animations to tackle alignment, popping and positioning issues
• Quality pass for dinosaur audio to address some mistimings and missing sounds
• Fixed dinosaurs getting stuck panicking after fleeing
• Made dinosaurs reduce breaking out after Comfort is returned to satisfied
• Trigger territorial fights (taunt only) when at the max social level, not when we’ve crossed it
• Dinosaur Comfort Calculation Improvements:
  • We now do a can get to check on all nearby dinos at once – this stops the update interval being so variable
  • The maximum radius of the comfort check has been increased slightly
  • We now prioritise updating the selected dinosaur’s comfort every second
  • We now don’t stop the flood fill check based on manhattan distance, but area, so we see further in one direction if we’re right up against a fence in the other direction
• Doubled the range of lifespan for all dinosaurs. Every point of lifespan is now twice as effective
• Prevent comfort levels from dropping during hatchery release if the exit is blocked
• Dinosaurs now satisfy their hunt need different amounts when eating humans compared to other food sources
• Fixed for drinking but not replenishing their needs:
• Spinosaurus Hatchery Exit Roar now favours the most common JP3 variant
• Once a dinosaur is marked for death (ie: during the finishing move of a hunt or a fight), don’t allow medicine to increase its health anymore
• Lowered Indoraptor defense a little so it can take damage from defender dinosaurs like Triceratops
• Corrected Mamenchiasaurus images in InGen database
• Fix for hatchery intro music not playing when you release a second dinosaur but still get the cutscene whilst the first dinosaur music is finishing
• Prevent the user selecting a point underneath monorail tracks as a dinosaur transport destination
• Fixed injury decals not working for some dinosaurs
• Reduced the times you hear Claire/Owen talk about dino needs and made the triggers more appropriate
• Added correct music to velociraptor hatchery exits
• Reduced fence attack strength for ornithomimid and hadrosaurs
• Increased fence attack strength for pachycephalosauridae
• In a non-lethal fight the winner taunts as the loser flees
• Increase time interval between dinosaur fights
• Reduce waiting interval for dinosaurs preparing to fight
• Reduce the minimum grazing distance so dinosaurs don’t get stuck in this when they should be attending more important needs
• Added VO for when there are no more diseased dinosaurs left in your park
• Increased the likelihood of guests being trampled by carnivores
• Increased the volume of dinosaurs present in the park, especially at higher elevation
• Increased frequency and audibility of distant Sauropod calls
• Fixed dinosaurs thinking they can’t reach anything on the first few frames after loading
• Dinosaur description pass to improve bio accuracy
• Fix for dinosaur fight music extending far beyond watching dinosaurs fight
• Fixed cosmetic genes not being immediately usable after research is complete

Guests

• Stop guests teleporting into enclosures when there aren’t any breaches
• Don’t show guests using a building if they’re not actually using it

Management

• Fixed artificial facility rating spikes that can occur after reopening a closed park

Missions

• Cancelling a mission from another island no longer leaves dinosaurs tagged and stuck in a mission state
• If reputation goes down causing a mission to become unavailable, represent this correct in the division rewards UI
• When we cancel a story mission make sure we purge all the vo associated with it
• Fixed incorrect objective icon for Entertainment mission on Isla Sorna

Photo Mode

• Reduced the minimum distance the dino head needs to be from the camera to count as a good photo
• Added better messaging if the dinosaur’s head is offscreen or too close to the camera
• Use three points of reference for judging if a dinosaur is visible to reduce observing no dinosaurs visible if they are too close
• Extended photo distances for all dinosaurs so that they’re more likely to count as in shot

Sandbox

• Fixed triggering of rain/storms in sandbox
• Fixed the management Finances button showing “Making a profit” etc in sandbox where cash is unlimited
• Fixed the moon appearing during daytime / dusk, after switching from nighttime lighting
• Disable some uncompletable contracts in sandbox mode. For example “Complete an expedition” which can’t be done in sandbox
• Fixed fossils, research, and expedition icons showing on
• Fixed cash always appearing unlimited for Nublar in island management view

Vehicles

• Prevent the ACU helicopter sometimes coasting into hills/buildings if the player relinquishes control just before an impact
• Fixed two transport helicopters both trying to avoid each other and floating up to heaven
• Made player driven cars reserve the space underneath them when still or moving slowly
• Ranger AI driving improvements
• When selecting a vehicle task, don’t show repair icons over upgrades if the building it belongs to is already queued for repair
• Increased maximum number of transport helis from 3 to 5
• Improved the third-person camera behaviour slightly when the driven gyrosphere clips into a dinosaur’s head
• Increased ranges at which vehicles are audible in the park and made their audio more responsive to user input
• Show a confirmation prompt when adding a new ranger team, to avoid the player accidentally spending money. Particularly useful in Challenge mode as ranger teams are more expensive there
• Fixed gyrospheres sometimes getting stuck in stations

User Interface

• Fixed a circumstance where edge scrolling stopped working
• Display sale value in the dinosaur stats tab. It updates around every 20 seconds
• Added better error messaging for failed saves
• Improved and expanded loading screen tips to target them at common issues and fix incorrect information
• Add shortcut keys to the various management tabs:
  • F1-F6 go to the various management tabs. 1-5 go to the Island Management tab and open one of the sub-pages.
  • Controls are rebindable
  • Shortcuts work in select mode, and while the management screen is open
  • Shortcuts are disabled depending on which tabs and which sub-pages are available in the current mode (Challenge and Sandbox have various tabs/pages disabled)
• Moved the Candeleros Formation dig site slightly south on the map to better match where in the formation the Giganotosaurus was actually found
• Don’t use confirmation box to confirm selling a fossil when you already have 100% genome
• Prevent the Guest Capacity help screen (and accompanying Cabot VO) from playing if the only reason you have a bad capacity rating is because you deleted most of your park
• Show genome completed percentage on the expedition map
• Completed sites in the Expedition Map won’t show the specimen list anymore
• Fixed InGen database so that the correct trait genes entries unlock when the appropriate trait gene research is completed
• Added the dinosaur’s name to the transport tooltip
• Added disease to dinosaur tooltip
• Added feeder icons for resupply needed
• Removed Expected Lifespan from the dinosaur info panel, as it’s the same as the value in Lifespan Genes
• Audio pass on various UI screens
• Fixed apostrophe not showing up correctly on custom names
• Use game data (rather than hard string) for dig site details for dinosaurs in the InGen database
• Fixed dinosaur tooltip not updating while in the Map view
• Show feeder reserves in the tooltip when you hover over it
• Made the order of information in the building info panel consistent
• Added dinosaur roars and movement audio for ingen database entries
• Fixed various Gene splicer audio bugs
• Contract and Mission display on the HUD can be clicked to open the Contract/Mission details screen
• Fixed command centre music not returning if you receive and decline a story mission whilst in the command centre
• Increased the scroll speed on the research screen
• Upon loading a save, ensure that InGen Database character entries that are tied to an island unlock are actually unlocked, in case they were missed previously
• Add a message to empty save/load screens. Informs the player that no saves were found, or save slots are all full, as appropriate
• Added new VO to financial reports
• Fixed ‘Help’ Control Prompt being doubled up on the Control Room’s InGen Database screen
• Moved Credits option from the frontend into the settings
• Various text fixes
• Updated localisation
• Fix for island navigation left and right when a pin is selected
• Various localisation fixes

Other

• Increased likelihood of world music triggering
• Fixed game music playing over credits music if both are active when the end credits are triggered
• Fixed an issue that could muffle all audio until visiting the command centre
• Added a help screen to assist players set the safe frame on PS4
• Shadow render improvements for Playstation 4 Pro and Xbox One X
• Billboard trees are now more accurate in colour and brightness
• Performance improvements for lowest quality settings
• Increase the deadzone on the analogue stick camera controls to address issues with drifting camera on PS4
• General increase in game volume / loudness and mix improvement pass
• Greatly increased the distance threshold of hunt music triggering when you are in a vehicle and a dinosaur is terrorising
• Now autosave when reputation changes because of a contract being completed
• Fixed an error when loading a Challenge save file with an “offered” contract in it

Stability Fixes

• Fixed a crash where you could try to set the item price / staff level on a building without the appropriate attraction / staff component
• Prevent the player from deleting hatcheries while dinosaurs are being released as this causes a crash
• Fixed crash for gunner activity if no gunner exists
• Fixed a crash when assigning a ranger task at the same moment as its skin id being changed
• Fixed a crash when generating GPU crash data on Win 7
• Don’t crash if a dead dinosaur somehow catches a disease
• Fixed a crash relating to the gyrosphere not being fully initiated
• Handle the case where a vehicle is despawned, but a child projectile is still active
• Don’t report a crash if an input device driver takes too long to respond
• Handle a crash if a player table fails to load
• Fix memory leak with crowd system
• Fixed an occasional crash on shutdown in Windows
• Fixed an assert when spamming buttons in the hatchery UI
• Guard against no valid game owner in cameras when returning from pause

John Papadopoulos

John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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