Trivia / Prehistoric Kingdom

• I Knew It!: The developers throw hints at what new creatures will be added in each update, but sometimes they make it too easy for the fanbase to make a guess.
  • The devs only had to release two images that showed fractions of a feathered animal and mention that it was a famous species for fans to figure out that Velociraptor would be added in Update 8.
  • When the second animal planned for Update 11 was given jokes about it being godly, it was almost immediately and correctly pegged as the Discord's God Dinosaur, Plateosaurus.
• Schedule Slip: Due to the end of March 2024 happening to be on Easter Sunday, the Dev Log for that month was pushed back to April 1st. Understandably, multiple jokes regarding April Fools' Day were had on the forums before the devlog was even released, mostly over whether it would include a prank and if so, what it would be. No such joke happened, with the devs even prefacing the Discord announcement of said update by saying that they had no time for a joke.
• Troubled Production: Following a cease and desist order by Universal due to the initial vision of the game (titled Jurassic Genetics) leaning too close to Jurassic Park (the Ceratosaurus model, for example, was taken practically unchanged from the creature's appearance in Jurassic Park III), the developers had to revise many of their plans, which ended up causing the team to split between those who preferred Rule of Cool and those who wanted scientific accuracy. The former would go on to create Mesozoica, which was released in a vastly incomplete state and eventually abandoned following the release of Jurassic World: Evolution. Prehistoric Kingdom's team, meanwhile, would continue refining their vision until the game was released in 2022, almost eight years after it was first announced.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally, the game was to be titled Jurassic Genetics and would have had a more Rule of Cool theme over accuracy. Universal would end up filing a cease and desist order due to the game's name and playstyle getting too close to Jurassic Park (and by extension Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis), which caused the team to change the name and decide on a new vision. Part of the team wanted a game more focused on paleontological accuracy and would go on to create Prehistoric Kingdom. The others wanted one that leaned more toward Rule of Cool and created the game Mesozoica. That game experienced such troubled production that when it was finally released on steam, the game amounted to little more than a tech-demo, which wasn't able to save itself before Jurassic World: Evolution released, killing it completely.
  • Had the Kickstarter reached its $130,000 and $160,000 stretch goals, the game would have included Special Exhibits (essentially larger, interactive prebuilt versions of the current mini-exhibits) and a Recently-Extinct Animals Expansion featuring the great auk, dodo, Haast's eagle, thylacine, upland moa, aurochs, tarpan, Steller's sea cow, bluebuck and quagga.
  • There were originally plans to include aquatic and flying animals in Early Access, with the former being represented by Mosasaurus, Elasmosaurus, and Icthyosaurus while the latter would be represented by Pteranodon. For whatever reason (likely path finding issues, given that swimming wouldn't be added into the game until Update 9 while flying is currently restricted to mini-exhibit creatures, which are a development Black Box), these were scrapped, though the devs do want to add them in eventually.
  • Early concept art shows that an entire set of Paleozoic animals was considered, with the original Kickstarter list indicating that at least Dimetrodon was intended to be in the full game. By the time of the first early access render release, all of them had been put on the backburner.
  • The original plans for the game included ideas for over one hundred different animals, with initial plans dividing them up based on either formation or time period. Examples include a Cenozoic group, an aquatic group, a Paleozoic group, a pterosaur group,and more animals from the Cedar Mountain and Cloverly Formations. This was eventually condensed into fifty different genera, with the intent being to release all of them before the game exited Early Access.
  • Six species, Deinonychus, Nothronychus, Sauropelta, Tenontosaurus, Yangchuanosaurus, and Thescelosaurus were cofirmed to have been outright replaced by different animals, with Utahraptor (Deinonychus), Deinocheirus (Nothronychus), Muttaburrasaurus (Tenontosaurus), Scelidosaurus (Sauropelta), Carnotaurus (Yangchuanosaurus), and Leaellynasaura (Thescelosaurus) being the ones that ended up in the game. Apatosaurus was also not included at launch, but was confirmed as one of the four species debuting in Update 12. Additionally, while Megatherium is not currently in the game, the developers used it to test shaders for fur and confirmed that they would like to eventually add it in.
  • The original species bios indicated that different skins would be unlocked as the player acquired more of the genome of that animal. This was eventually scrapped in favor of simply choosing which one to unlock at each digsite. Additionally, said bios also listed as the third species of Allosaurus as A. maximus, while the artbook would confirm that all three skins would be reshuffled and that A. maximus would instead be made into a fourth skin and properly named Saurophaganax.
  • Concept art shows that several animals were considered for having feathered and non-feathered skins, namely Torvosaurus and Allosaurus. These skins were scrapped by the time of Early Access.
  • As shown in the artbook, there were plans to give Lambeosaurus a speculative crest based upon its relative Magnapaulia before the team decided to settle on one more like the classical depiction of said crest.
• Word of God: The first volume of the artbook has several developer statements regarding many parts of the game.
  • Each biome section states which real-world locations were used to develop them.
    • The desert was based upon the Mojave and the Australian Bush. Somewhat ironically, the current desert map is set in neither, instead being located in Jordan.
    • Scrubland is an extremely common environment worldwide, but the game's version is based on Spain and Italy, with a few plants from the American East Coast.
    • The basis for the Grasslands was taken from the African Savannah and the South American Pampas.
    • South America and South East Asia were the starting points for the Tropical Biome.
    • The Wetlands Biome is drawn primarily from the American Bayous and mangrove swamps.
    • Continental Europe and the American East Coast were factors in creating the Temperate Biome.
    • Coastal is, unsurprisingly, based upon the American West Coast, specifically Washington and California.
    • Last but not least, the Boreal Biome is based upon Siberia and Canada.
  • Most of the power items are based on real-word electrical infrastructure. The yellow color scheme was chosen both to unify the parts and to make them visually distinct.
  • The Leatherhide Tyrannosaurus skin never had any 2-D concept art.
  • All the animals in the artbook either already exist in the game or are planned to be introduced in 2024, meaning that the confirmed roster for that year (that haven't been mentioned elsewhere) are Allosaurus (with Saurophaganax as an alternate species), Ankylosaurus, Megaloceros, Leaellynasaura, Stegosaurus, and Ursus (specifically the Eurasian Cave Bear). Leaellynasaura in particular is set to debut in Update 11, as it already has a functional in-game model.
  • Unrelated to the artbook, the developers confirmed on discord that one of the animals debuting in Update 11 would be the "God Dinosaur". Going by discord discussion and memes, it's generally assumed that this is Plateosaurus.
  • Mini-exhibits are something of a Black Box and are difficult for the developers to work on, which is why they haven't seen any new additions since Early Access started. Additionally, Compsognathus is planned to be a mini-exhibit creature.
  • Of the animals revealed in the 2019 Kickstarter roster, only Ankylosaurus, Allosaurus, Baryonyx, Ceratosaurus, Stegosaurus, Megaloceros, and Ursus are confirmed to be coming to Early Access.
  • Per the artbook, the Tropical Biome deliberately excludes large, bushy trees in the mid level fo the canopy to avoid making it hard to see animals within the exhibit.