“The actual journey, the arc of Maya, it’s incredible,” said Mistry in the trailer. “She was personally recruited by Dr. Henry Wu to become an InJen scientist to work at the park. Players will take on the character of Maya while she encounters these hugely terrifying dinosaurs, but also these really harsh challenges. And you find out a lot about Maya throughout the process, emotionally and mentally.”

Further in the trailer, Mistry also spoke about her thoughts on playing the character of Dr. Joshi, and what it means to her to play a character that shares a similar background to her own real life.

“I feel like I’m learning a lot about myself, to be honest,” she said. “She’s very inspiring and she has a lot of admirable traits. Jurassic Park is so loved, you want to do the characters justice, you want to do the game justice. I think that I am standing on the shoulders of some of the coolest female characters in cinema history. It’s incredible.”

Jurassic Park: Survival was announced all the way back in December 2023 with a trailer that served as our first introduction to Dr. Joshi, who has been seemingly left behind in the eponymous park. While not too many gameplay details were known at the time, the trailer indicated that there would be quite a bit of survival and stealth-oriented gameplay throughout the title, with plenty of exploration, as well as parkour abilities to aid in said exploration.

Last year, executive producer at Universal Products and Experiences John Melchior revealed that the upcoming title will explore the world of Jurassic Park after the events of the original movie. This means that players will get to revisit some of the iconic spots from the movie, including the Visitor’s Center, as well as the T-Rex paddock. Along with this, he also confirmed that we would get to see parts of Isla Nublar that have never been seen before.

”We have been working with all our stakeholders on what the island would have looked like after the events of the film,” said Melchior. “This includes areas we all love like the Visitor’s Center and the T-Rex paddock. But also, what we didn’t see, things that were not part of the tour or got cut off by the storm. Those on the island were supposed to be there overnight, so what does that mean? What would they have seen and where would they have stayed if everything went according to plan? That is where we are starting. One thing is certain – the island is as much a part of the story as the characters and dinosaurs.”

Jurassic Park: Survival is being developed for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. It doesn’t yet have a release date. For more details, check out some pre-alpha gameplay from back in August.

Since they’re such an integral part of the experience, a great deal of effort has gone into getting the dinosaurs “right.” “They are the stars of this franchise. The textures, the movements, the weight of the
dinosaurs on the earth. That will all feel like the dinosaurs that you know and love from the first film,” said Leah Slater, senior director of Universal products and experiences.

One sequence sees Maya backing up through a tree trunk as a Tyrannosaurus Rex rips it apart, piece by piece. It’s confirmed that it can eat you, resulting in a (hopefully) quick death. As for Maya, she was recruited by Dr. Henry Wu, the lead geneticist of Jurassic Park (and Jurassic World), so expect some references to him. Described as “passionate” by actor Payal Mistry, she’s a risk-taker and not afraid to step out of her comfort zone.

Jurassic Park: Survival doesn’t have a release date, but it is in development for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Stay tuned for more details and additional featurettes in the coming months.

For starters, it has been confirmed that while Jurassic Park: Survival is of course going to have players explore familiar locations from the movie – like the Visitor Center and the T-rex paddock – it will also feature entirely new locations across Isla Nublar.

“”We have been working with all our stakeholders on what the island would have looked like after the events of the film,” said John Melchior, executive producer at Universal Products and Experiences. “This includes areas we all love like the Visitor’s Center and the T-Rex paddock. But also, what we didn’t see, things that were not part of the tour or got cut off by the storm. Those on the island were supposed to be there overnight, so what does that mean? What would they have seen and where would they have stayed if everything went according to plan? That is where we are starting. One thing is certain – the island is as much a part of the story as the characters and dinosaurs.”

Meanwhile, Oliver Hollis-Leick, who’s the game’s creative director at Saber Interactive, has also confirmed that the game will feature new characters – in addition to Maya, the game’s protagonist – while when asked about whether or not the game will also feature new dinosaur species that we did not see in the original Jurassic Park film, Melchior cheekily teased, “Life finds a way…”

And exactly what kind of game is Jurassic Park: Survival going to be anyway? Details on that front remain scarce (though reports have claimed that it’s taking inspiration from Alien: Isolation), but as per a brief description by Hollis-Leick, players will have to “use a mixture of intelligence, grit and patience to survive the island’s many challenges”.

“The island is full of different types of terrain, many of them quite challenging,” Hollis-Leick said. “The player will need to use caution and planning in some cases, checking routes in advance. There will also be times when the player will need to move very carefully through an environment to avoid the attention of certain predators. Maya, the main character, is neither superhuman nor an action hero. There are real risks for her around every corner and the player will need to use a mixture of intelligence, grit and patience to survive the island’s many challenges.”

Jurassic Park: Survival is in development for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. It doesn’t yet have a release date or window.

As per a report published by Deadline, The Super Mario Bros. Movie was the most profitable movie of 2023, beating the likes of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Oppenheimer, and Barbie. The animated film’s production costs of $100 million were split 50-50 by Nintendo and Universal, and with several other expenses added on top, it had a total budget of $400 million.

Against that, across its theatrical run, home entertainment release, and TV and streaming viewings, The Super Mario Bros. Movie brought in total revenues of $959 million, for a net profit of $559 million, making it the most lucrative movie of the year.

In March, Nintendo announced that it had started working on a follow-up to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, targeting an April 2026 release.

Nintendo is currently also working on a live-action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda with Sony Pictures, to be directed by Wes Bell (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Maze Runner).

I never really cared much for Crash Bandicoot– I was more of the purist platforming that Super Mario 64 pioneered on the N64 to really care for Crash, but there is no denying that the games form a significant part of many a gamer’s childhood- most of them who grew up on the PlayStation, anyway.

Which means that even though I can’t personally join in on the cries, I can understand why people so desperately want the series back. That desperation probably leads them to look for connections and hints where none exist.

Look at this newest tweet by PlayStation Latin America, for example- they’ve posted an image of Crash, with the #tbt hashtag, meaning they’re very obviously just referencing an older game without it meaning anything new. And yet, fans are now looking at the art included (which is a touched up version of a render that appeared in magazines back in the day), claiming that there is no way someone would go to the effort of cleaning up that old art just for a #tbt post (even though they’d have to, if they wanted that art to be presentable on modern social media), adding it to the list of ‘teases’ that Sony have been making.

Maybe they have been teasing the return of Crash, and we’ll see it soon. Or maybe, just maybe- it’s all a bunch of giant coincidences.

Just maybe.

Movie tie ins on consoles may be a thing of the past, but it appears that the upcoming Fast and Furious movie will get a tie in game to go along with it on Xbox after all; this will come in the form of a standalone Fast and Furious expansion for Forza Horizon 2, and it will release next month. And if you are worried that, like all movie tie in games, this one too will suck, you don’t have to- it appears that the actual developers of the Forza games are behind this expansion too.

“We’ve been talking with the folks at Turn 10 for a number of years and have always wanted to work together,” said Bill Kispert, EVP of digital licensing at Universal told the Associated Press.

“It was a matter of schedules, capacity and a film coming together at the right time. It finally has, and we’re excited to collaborate with Turn 10.”

The expansion, which will serve as a prequel to the movie, will be standalone, in that you will not require the base game to play it. And unlike all the other downloadable post launch content for these games, this expansion will be coming to both, the Xbox One and the Xbox 360. It will launch on Maarch 27, and will be free for the following week; after that, you can get it for $10.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more.