Frontier Developments, responsible for Elite: Dangerous and Planet Coaster, unveiled the first gameplay footage for the upcoming Jurassic World: Evolution, a park sim where you build/manage your own Jurassic World and take responsibility for the inevitable bunch of fatalities in your park because absolute power corrupts absolutely (I’m saying you’ll release all your dinosaurs). Jurassic World: Evolution’s development team took the stage at Frontier Expo and gave us a few insights into the game.

First off, Jurassic World: Evolution looks stunning. The textures are painstakingly detailed and, as a bonus, Frontier said that Universal granted them access to the 3D models used in the films. It will be the most accurate representation of the series’ dinosaurs ever put into a game (not that that bar has been high, but still). The animations are carefully crafted – e.g., in the gameplay trailer, you can watch a sleeping T. rex with intricate detail in the muscle movements. Oh, and Jurassic World: Evolution will have a lush tropical landscape for you to plop your prehistoric critters, which is something we’ve wanted to see. Incredible for a game that’s in pre-alpha.

Jurassic World: Evolution game director Michael Brookes lifted the veil on some gameplay mechanics, namely management. Jurassic World: Evolution will focus on three avenues – Entertainment (your dinosaurs as attractions), Security (how dangerous you can make your dinosaurs/manage them), and Science (understanding your dinosaurs). Brookes says that you can focus on any variation of the three and each offers its own experience. There will be representatives from the aforementioned three fields, each of whom wishes for different things from your park. Players will be able to take contracts and the game offers a progression system (as indicated in the below image by the XP tally).

Frontier gave a peek into the “Dig Sites” tab above, showing 28 sites by our count. We don’t know how many dinosaur species they intend to include, but 28 sites probably equal a hefty amount. Living up to Frontier’s promise of being able to bioengineer new dinosaurs, players will be able to edit the genomes of their dinosaurs so as to give them particular traits. No word on the hybrid dinosaur front, but that feels like a given. From everything we’ve seen, the game will let you be deeply involved with the operations of your Jurassic World and that’s fantastic to see.

If you’re aching for some good ol’ in-game footage, feast your eyes:

Jurassic World: Evolution arrives in summer 2018 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.