Jurassic World Evolution 3 hits PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5 soon, and the team behind the game just revealed a brand-new dinosaur at IGN Fan Fest 2025: Fall Edition. When the game releases in just a few days, players will be able to breed and care for a new dinosaur that up until now has only shown up on the big screen: the Therizinosaurus.

The Therozinosaurus previously appeared in the 2022 movie Jurassic World Dominion. I spoke exclusively with the team behind Jurassic World: Evolution 3 to break down why they consider the new dinosaur a pivotal addition to the franchise.

“The Therizinosaurus is a key franchise dinosaur now,” says Andy Fletcher, Game Director for Jurassic World Evolution 3. “Our narrative for our campaign begins shortly after Dominion. So it certainly makes sense for us to include that dinosaur at that point in the Jurassic timeline. It’s a unique dinosaur. It’s very, very high appeal for your parks and your guests, but it’s not the easiest to look after. It doesn’t act too well with other species. We also thought with the advent of dinosaur families and the relationship between juveniles and adults (it would be an) interesting element of that particular dinosaur to explore.”

Senior designer Sandro Sammarco says “It’s big, it’s scary, it’s got those horrific looking claws. But because it’s a relatively independent and powerful dinosaur, the parents want to protect it, but they don’t really care about it that much.”

It’s those dinosaur families that serve as a key element of Jurassic World Evolution 3. For the first time, players can breed dinosaurs and look after entire groups of both adults and juveniles.

“We’ve got a core mechanic that when you look after (the juveniles), the better they’re treated, the better their welfare, the more appeal they retain as an adult,” Sammarco says. “The guests appreciate the welfare of dinosaurs being looked after. So it means that you have to look after the Therizinosaurus as a family unit. You can’t just care about (the juvenile), which is quite an interesting facet.”

In addition to the Therizinosaurus, Fletcher and Sammarco revealed that the very first level of Jurassic World Evolution 3 will feature another new dinosaur and a familiar (yet new to the games) location for Jurassic fans.

“Lokiceratops is one of our new additions in Jurassic World Evolution 3,” Fletcher says. “It’s a recently-discovered dinosaur. It’s got a distinct large frill that we really can’t wait to see. It was found in Montana, which is the opening level of our campaign. And indeed, that’s the first dinosaur family you’ll see in Jurassic World Evolution 3.”

Beyond Montana, players will get to visit a variety of new locations in the game.

“We can go all across the world to new locations that even the franchise hasn’t been to before (like) China and Japan,” Fletcher says. “It’s a great, globetrotting campaign bigger than any of our ones before. (In) the original novel there was a plan for a Jurassic Park Europe, which was intended to be built on the Azores islands. So one of our levels takes place on the Azores. And the assignment there is to realize the vision of John Hammond back from those early days, and being enlisted to help with that.”

As anticipation builds for the game, the team behind Jurassic World Evolution 3 is on pins and needles waiting to see how fans will react both to the new dinosaurs and new mechanics in the game.

“I’m really excited and interested to see how players are going to interact with dinosaurs no longer as monolithic blocks,” Sammarco says. “It’s no longer, ‘oh, this is the T-Rex enclosure with the T-Rex.’ Now it’s here are the T-Rexes. And they could be males, they could be females. They could be juveniles. How do they get along? What are your cohabitation potentials and what are the challenges that come along with that? We’ve got these dinosaur simulation brains that are working that out. And because there are so many dinosaurs, there are so many combinations, it’s going to be intriguing to work out to see what players try to do and see what the results are of that.”

Jurassic World Evolution 3 is available to play on October 21.