Developer Great Ape has offered a new look at its upcoming title The Lost Wild, this time around focusing on the development of the game. The dev diary, which you can check out below, clocks in at two and a half minutes in length and introduces us to the Brighton, UK-based team working on the title.
One of the biggest selling points of The Lost Wild is the fact that Great Ape wants to focus on creating scientifically accurate dinosaurs. According to game director Gary Napper, this also means that the team had to pay attention to how these dinosaurs behave in the game’s world. “It’s about the type of fear of being around those sorts of creatures and what that entails.”
Lead narrative designer Tom Hughes speaks about how frightening it would be for a person who was, in one moment, living their normal life and in another, finds themselves in a strange land surrounded by prehistoric creatures.
“I would describe [protagonist] Sastia as a grounded, real person. She is someone who is an ordinary person who is plunged into the extraordinary.”
Art director and studio co-founder Tim Mehmet discussed the research that went into designing the scientifically accurate dinosaurs, and how the team had to take trips to places like the Redwood Forest in California.
On the subject of how the dinosaurs will behave in The Lost Wild, AI and gameplay programmer Lou Thorpe-Monaghan says that the team treats the dinosaurs as if they are characters rather than enemies. “We’ve always treated them as something that exists without the player being there.”
The core message behind this developer diary is how fear plays a big role in establishing the tone of The Lost Wild. The team is trying to achieve this by putting an emphasis on how naturally the dinosaurs will behave, and how the player will also have to come to terms with the fact that they are living alongside the dinosaurs now and don’t necessarily have to fight every single one they see.
The Lost Wild was unveiled all the way back in 2022, and at the time, it was slated for a 2024 release. It was originally being developed for PC before the studio eventually announced that it is also making its way to PS5. Earlier this year, the team released a brand-new trailer that gave us a look at how the gameplay in The Lost Wild has been shaping up.
Throughout the trailer, Great Ape emphasized the fact that The Lost Wild is supposed to subvert typical gaming expectations. This is being accomplished by presenting dinosaurs as legitimate threats and not simply as enemies to take on. The trailer showcased this, giving us a glimpse at how the player can sneak around dinosaurs as they navigate through the world, and even how dinosaurs behave when the player isn’t around to distract them.
The Lost Wild doesn’t yet have a solid release date, and Great Ape and publisher Annapurna Interactive have only confirmed a general 2027 launch window.
