Welcome, Park Managers!

We're pleased to announce that the Supporter Bundle is now live on Steam; featuring volume one of the Prehistoric Kingdom digital art book and soundtrack!

The Supporter Bundle is intended for players who would like to continue supporting our development team and is available for $7.99 USD as optional downloadable content here.

For new players looking to jump into Prehistoric Kingdom, there is also a Base Game + Supporter Bundle option available to purchase.

Alternatively, the art book and soundtrack can be purchased independently.



Who is this for?
This bundle is meant for people who would like to continue supporting the development team, that may have missed out on Kickstarter rewards, or simply want to listen to some PK music and read a book!

I’m a backer/early adopter! How can I get this?
Please check your Crytivo account for elligible rewards. We are still working on getting everything correct, so please give it a few days for your rewards to appear. We will post to Twitter and Facebook if major changes need to occur!

What does this mean for the game’s monetization?
We will continue to release free content updates as we continue to go through Early Access and beyond! It’s way too early to think about paid gameplay/animal DLC.

These art books and music releases simply help fund development and give the community something to enjoy in return! We hope that everyone looks forward to and enjoys the Supporter Bundle when it releases on March 8th.

Welcome, Park Managers!

We hope you’ve been enjoying the recent release of Update 10! In case you missed it, this update introduces the new prehistoric mammals Elasmotherium, Sinotherium, and two species of cave lion. On top of that, there’s a brand new map, stone age building set and an updated boreal biome!

You can find the full patch notes for Update 10 here. We don’t have a traditional Dev Diary for you this month due to the release of Update 10, but we do have a rather exciting announcement instead!



We’re proud to announce that on March 8th (next Friday!), we’ll be launching the Supporter Bundle on Steam: featuring volume one of the Prehistoric Kingdom digital art book and soundtrack!

This collection has been lovingly put together by our team’s artists and composer over the last few months, working together to build dozens of beautiful pages and a gorgeous selection of music from the game.



The Supporter Bundle is intended for players who would like to continue supporting our development team and will be available for $7.99 USD as optional downloadable content.

Alternatively, the art book and soundtrack can be purchased independently.



Available separately for $5.99 USD on March 8th

Over 180 pages of artwork, including exclusive early looks at upcoming animals and behind the scenes information about how we work on the game and our design decisions.





Non-final previews.

This volume provides an in-depth look at our process, animal concept art, the science behind some of our creatures and a deep dive into the wealth of structural art we’ve painted for the game. Whether you’re a paleo fanatic or simply interested in the art process of game dev, you won’t wanna miss this!



Available separately for $3.99 USD on March 8th

Ranging from dino-sized orchestral soundscapes to introspective instrumentals, take a walk in the park and enjoy 30 minutes of music of Prehistoric Kingdom composed by Byron McKay.


This release features 15 tracks (including 4 bonus biome medley tracks) in addition to updated music arrangements not yet heard in-game with live woodwinds performed by Joe Di Fiore and mixing by Adam Miller. You can wishlist the soundtrack page on Steam right now!



Who is this for?
This bundle is meant for people who would like to continue supporting the development team, that may have missed out on Kickstarter rewards, or simply want to listen to some PK music and read a book!

I’m a backer/early adopter! How can I get this?
We’ll be sharing info on how to get your copies next week! Thank you for your patience.

What does this mean for the game’s monetization?
We will continue to release free content updates as we continue to go through Early Access and beyond! It’s way too early to think about paid gameplay/animal DLC.

These art books and music releases simply help fund development and give the community something to enjoy in return! We hope that everyone looks forward to and enjoys the Supporter Bundle when it releases on March 8th.

Welcome, Park Managers!

Update 10 is now available! This patch introduces 4 new species (3 genera), an enhanced boreal biome, a new map, as well as the much anticipated Stone Age building set. Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel.


Looking ahead, the team is working on bringing a greater sense of management gameplay to Prehistoric Kingdom with the addition of staff and other mechanics such as ontogeny later this year. While this development continues, we will continue supporting the game with hotfixes to address outstanding issues reported by the community.

There'll be no dev diary later this month due to the release of Update 10, though there will be a small blog post exploring the upcoming art book and soundtrack releases for those who would like to further support the game's development.

Thanks, and enjoy Update 10!

- The PK Team


Expand your kingdom's collection with 4 brand new species: Elasmotherium, Sinotherium, Panthera atrox and Panthera spelaea!





These ice age mammals make heavy use of the alt species system, allowing us to implement both American and European cave lions in addition to the much lesser known rhinoceros ancestor, Sinotherium!

In Update 10, animals will now try to dynamically path around one another! While there will still be some clipping with heads and tails (hard to get rid of without having oversized avoidance ranges on the animals), this will be a massive improvement across the board.



Additional AI improvements will be coming this year, so stay tuned!

Explore the frozen wilds of the Canadian Rockies with this mountainous environment. Scattered all over the map, players can find 21 new foliage pieces for the Boreal biome. Create lush steppes, tundras, and even flowering alpine forests.



It's time to go full unga bunga. Return to caveman and embrace the stone's cold embrace.

Featuring a new set of fences, walls, roofs, and modular objects inspired by both paleolithic and neolithic architecture, this is one of the most detailed sets we've created yet. The pieces are so diverse in their uses that we can't wait to see where they'll show up in your builds!




Using objects like the new stalagmite and stalactites, it's even possible to build surprisingly authentic cave structures. Perfect for cave lions, hm?



For those who're less creatively inclined (or enjoy the ease of use!) there are a bunch of new prefabs, too. These designs feel right at home amongst the pine forests.






All the modular murals have been merged into style options rather than individual objects to improve performance. Unfortunately, this means that some murals in your park may disappear and will need to be replaced. We're very sorry for the inconvenience!

• The new animals are missing Nigel voicelines! We will be adding them once we do our next recording session with Nigel.
  
• The new Boreal map can be quite memory intensive (may result in crashes on lower end systems!)
  
• There is an issue related to the undo/redo handling of the modular system which affects water edges. We have found the source of the problem and hope to address it in a hotfix update.
  
• We are aware that rendering and shadow culling distance on several modular items are too aggressive currently, which we are also addressing ASAP
  
• The tutorial scenario is momentarily disabled due to some unforeseen effects created by the newest changes and additions. We will be enabling it again as soon as these effects are addressed.

As always, we kindly thank you for your patience!

• NEW ANIMAL: Elasmotherium
  
• NEW ANIMAL: Panthera atrox/spelaea
  
• NEW ANIMAL: Sinotherium
  
• NEW MAP: Canadian Rockies
  
• NEW BUILDING THEME: Stone Age

• Gameplay
  • Parks can now be opened and closed at a player’s whim, forcing guests to react accordingly. This can be toggled through the Management View
    
  • Added and reshuffled Cenozoic formations:
    • Added the Liushu Formation in China
      
    • Added the Tokod Formation in Hungary which now contains the existing Mammoth Steppe biota - Vilyui River and Yamal Peninsula have been removed from the excavations selection
      
    • Added the Koktschetaw Formation in Kazakhstan
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Added Concrete Roofs to the Basic Theme
    
  • Added new materials to the Curved Cap Roof piece (Tropical Thatch, Basic Shingle Tiles, Modern Wooden Tiles & Modern Metal Planks)
    
  • Added Elasmotherium & Cave Lion Silhouette pieces
    
  • Added Stone Age Theme Structures & Pieces
    • Added Moss Roofs
      
    • Added Cave Roofs
      
    • Added Layered Thatch Roofs
      
    • Added Stick Wall
      
    • Added Cave Walls
      
    • Added New Mammoth Steppe Mural
      
    • Added 2 Stone Age Fences with short, medium and tall size variants (Stone Cave Fences & Wooden Palisade Fences)
      
    • Added 4 Stone Age Paths (Log Path, Fossil Path, Footprint Path & Substrate Path)
      
    • Added Cave Paint decals with 12 different styles!
      
    • Added 2 Doors
      
    • Added 3 Benches
      
    • Added 2 Bins
      
    • Added 2 Tables
      
    • Added 3 Basalt Rock pieces
      
    • Added 2 Stalagmite pieces
      
    • Added 2 Stalagmite Column pieces
      
    • Added 3 Stalactite pieces
      
    • Added 3 StoneHenge Rock pieces
      
    • Added 2 Carved Stone Beam pieces
      
    • Added 4 Mushroom pieces (Porcini, Fly Amanita, Chanterelle, Shaggy Ink Caps)
      
    • Added 2 Moss Clump pieces
      
    • Added Fish Rack piece
      
    • Added Furs Rack piece
      
    • Added 3 Railing pieces
      
    • Added 7 Hide-Wall Structural pieces
      
    • Added Dugout Boat Canoe piece
      
    • Added Campfire piece
      
    • Added 4 Pot pieces
      
    • Added Basket Fish Trap piece
      
    • Added Stone Axe piece
      
    • Added Obsidian Knife piece
      
    • Added Rope Net piece
      
    • Added Rope Plane piece, uses World Space tiling textures similar to the Chainlink pieces!
      
    • Added 4 Dry Log pieces (4m Thin, 4m Thick, Thick Arch, Thin Arch)
      
    • Added 3 Birch Log pieces (4m, 2m & Arch)
  • Added 7 new Theropod bones (Theropod Vertebra Tail, Theropod Vertebra Neck, Theropod Finger, Theropod Toe, Theropod Radius & Ulna, Theropod Humerus, Theropod Shoulder)
    
  • Added 4 new Basic Railings
    
  • Added 2 Bollard pieces
    
  • Added Metal Shelf
    
  • Added a host of new official prefabs:
    • Stone Age Themed Prefabs
      • Prehistoric Kingdom Visitor Entrance Stone Age
        
      • Bathroom Stone Age Small, Large
        
      • Shop Shell Stone Age Small, Medium, Large
        
      • Bone Hut
        
      • Rest Area Stone Age 1
        
      • Viewing Platform Ston Age 1, 2
        
      • Stone Henge
        
      • Stone Henge Ruins
    • Misc. Prefabs
      • Animal Metallic Walkway
        
      • Climbing Tree 1, 2
• Foliage
  • Added 3 new vegetation painting presets to the boreal biome: Pine Forest, Flower Field and Dry Prairie
    
  • Added Boreal Scots Pine 1,2,3,4
    
  • Added Dry Tundra Grass 1,2
    
  • Added Labrador Tea 1,2 and Labrador Tea Bare 1,2
    
  • Added 8 variations of Dwarf Birch
    
  • Added Fireweed 1,2,3
• UI/UX
  • While editing a Modular Group, clicking repeatedly in the same place will now cycle through all Modular Pieces beneath the cursor
    
  • Added a QOL dialog notifying the player of a prefab creation’s success state
• Environment
  • Added Snow and Blizzard as environmental effects - they can be encountered naturally on the Canadian Rockies and Goldfinch Fields maps
    
  • Added northern lights effects to the Canadian Rockies map, visible at night time
• Audio
  • Added snow footstep sounds to animals
    
  • Added snow surface interaction sounds to animals
    
  • Added sounds to Coelodonta one shots
    
  • Added missing new game bird sounds to Tanzania
• Music
  • Added Boreal new game and load game music
    
  • Added Grassland new game and load game music

• Gameplay
  • Improved modular quick scaling behavior - multiple piece actions are once again included in quick scaling, while audio feedback is triggered when scaling isn’t allowed (i.e. on modules)
• Animals
  • Significant improvements to animal limb IKs
    
  • Adjusted swimming heights and transitions for Tyrannosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Muttaburrasaurus, Scelidosaurus, Velociraptor, Dryosaurus and Psittacosaurus
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Moved Concrete Walls to the Basic Theme
    
  • Slightly Trimmed the Plant Wall Facade Style to prevent the leafs overlapping the edges so it's easier to work with in builds
    
  • Moved Murals into Styles rather than their own individual objects to improve rendering performance - note this will cause some murals to vanish in your builds and they will need to be replaced, apologies in advance!
• Environment
  • Updated volumetric light to be less overwhelming at sunset
    
  • Updated light shafts to appear more volumetric
    
  • Updated sunset on most maps
    
  • Updated Spain lighting based on community feedback
    
  • Updated Tanzania night lighting to be consistent with other maps
    
  • Decreased immediate strength of fog for a clearer image
    
  • Decreased ambient reflections (less blue skylight reflected in the shade)
    
  • Increased night time star brightness
• UI/UX
  • Improved nursery animal preview and fur rendering by adjusting the preview angle and field of view
• Audio
  • Updated Coelodonta vocals to sound more full
• Music
  • Music that isn’t timing sensitive will not pause with the pause screen anymore

• Critical
  • Fixed a rare crash that could occur when animals drink
    
  • Fixed one issue breaking the undo/redo system for modular placement
    
  • Resolved an issue causing the info screen pieces to not correctly load information for alt. animal genera
    
  • Fixed a critical tutorial issue causing players to get stuck in the animal cinematic tracking mode
• Gameplay
  • Fixed a selection issue related to double clicking a modular item to get into edit mode
    
  • Fixed an issue causing animal placement to not totally reset the action when right-clicking
• Animals
  • Escaped animals should be far less common
    
  • Fixed animation error on Psittacosaurus eating exit
• Foliage
  • Fixed incorrect collision layer for Fox Glove White
    
  • Fixed offset pivot for Marula 3 (this may move your existing ones by a meter!)
• UI/UX
  • Fixed several instances of blank modular prefab previews
    
  • Resolved some layout issues in the Excavations Menu
    
  • Fixed a GUI issue in the main menu, causing the tutorial prompt panel to not be clickable
    
  • Fixed an issue causing time pausing not to properly trigger when first opening the screenshot menu
    
  • Fixed a layout positioning issue with the Tyrannosaurus preview in the loading screen
    
  • Fixed a layout issue in the building filter menu causing the grassland biome to be wrongly offset
• Audio
  • Fixed large ceratopsians using small ceratopsian yawn sound
    
  • Fixed rhino surface interaction sounds not accounting for terrain material
• Music
  • Fixed issue with music playing prematurely in the loading screen

Update 10 is coming soon on February 26!

Introducing 4 new species, an expanded boreal biome, and the Stone Age building set, the park has never looked so prehistoric.

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Welcome to the January Development Update!

Happy New Year, everyone! We hope you all had a lovely holiday season with plenty of gifts and giving to go around. This blog post will be focused on what’s to come in 2024, looking at the upcoming Update 10 as well as some rather exciting additions coming throughout the year. Let’s jump right into it!







Last month in December, we released Update 9 featuring the Grassland biome and a selection of fan-favorite animals like Spinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus. The reception to this update was really positive, and we quickly wanted to thank everyone who tuned in to play the game again.

Both Update 8 and 9 have been our first major steps into making our animals feel more organic and alive thanks to the overhauled locomotion and brain systems. This year, we’re going to continue this trend with adding more AI behaviors, animations, and the long-awaited introduction of baby animals.

As a start, we’ve been tackling a long standing community request; animal avoidance. Borrowing much of the technology currently used on guests, our goal is to give the animals a similar implementation, dynamically pathing around any incoming creatures in a nice and performant way. Take a look at the work in progress version below that’ll be coming in Update 10!



Once Update 10 releases, players will be able to see a dramatic decrease on animals walking directly through the middle of each other. While there will still be some clipping with heads and tails (hard to get rid of without having oversized avoidance ranges on the animals), this will be a massive improvement across the board.



In mid-late February, players will be able to explore the frozen wilds of the Canadian Rockies in Update 10, building your park with a brand new modular theme and resurrecting extinct species straight out of the ice age.

Joining the roster is none other than the Siberian unicorn, Elasmotherium! This large species of rhinoceros is best known for what is typically depicted as an exceptionally large horn. In recent years, however, its exact size has become the topic of debate.



When cloning Elasmotherium, our scientists were fortunate enough to find a variety of horn shapes and sizes depending on the genetic skin that they selected. Very convenient!



That’s not the only rhino joining us for Update 10, however! Found in east Asian fossil deposits, Sinotherium was a hairless ancestor to what would later become Elasmotherium. Available in-game as an alternate species, Sinotherium is the perfect option for park managers that want another grassland-based mammal.




In total, this makes two species of rhino and two species of cave lion coming to the game in February. The team looks forward to seeing all of your gorgeous screenshots once Update 10 releases!



The Stone Age theme is a new collection of styles and building pieces inspired by paleolithic and neolithic architecture. With items based on caves, early living and budding civilization, we think this theme will truly make your park feel like a Prehistoric Kingdom.





Of course, a new building theme wouldn’t be complete without new fences, too! We look forward to seeing what habitats you build with these palisade and stone fences in Update 10.




Finally, we’ve arrived in the mountains of Canada. This map boasts gorgeous, snowy views with a variety of foliage from the boreal, coastal and grassland biomes.




At night, players will be greeted to a stunning lightshow from the… aurora borealis?! At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your kingdom?! Yes! Please stay tuned for the release of Update 10 in mid-late February!





So, Update 10 is looking pretty cool, but what does the year look like for the game? We have a few major pillars that are in development behind the scenes, and our aim is to deliver them throughout 2024.

As these pillars are quite the undertaking, we will continue to release more art-centric updates (e.g. Update 10) to help prevent content droughts while we work on them in the background. There were a number of months last year when the game did not receive support while we developed Update 8, and that’s something we do not want to repeat.

So, grab your reading glasses and a drink because we’re about to see a lot of text!

Staff are going to be the heart of Prehistoric Kingdom’s management. They are the connection to your park, your guests and your animals. Beyond simply hiring the right people, it will be your job to ensure the park’s layout is designed efficiently so that supplies for both guests and animals can be moved quickly.

In terms of development, we’ve started laying the groundwork for staff in the codebase. We’ve done a lot of design work figuring out what exactly they should bring to the game and how that relates to our upcoming logistics management systems. While we’ll be getting into exact gameplay details in a future post, we’d like to start by sharing our vision for the various staff types in Prehistoric Kingdom and what they offer.



Generalist staff primarily interact with the guest and backend side of your park. Taking up the role of cashier, janitor or logistics, these are the people who ensure everything runs smoothly.

• Cashier: tends to visitors at kiosks and stores
  
• Janitor: cleans toilets, trash and delivers garbage to dumpsters
  
• Logistics: delivers shipments from loading bays to various storage units around the park (goods storage, animal feed warehouses)

What makes generalists unique, however, is that these roles aren’t rigid! If an urgent task appears and there’s an idle staff member nearby, they’ll complete it as long as it’s a generalist job. For example:

If a cashier is waiting vacantly with no customers to tend to, they might decide to quickly go clean up a pile of trash (janitor job) or restock some merchandise shelves (logistics job) if they have nothing else to do. Once complete, the cashier would return to their original job.

Our goal here is to maximise the utility of your generalist staff, so if the park’s demand raises slightly higher than your current workforce numbers, the player has a built-in safety net. Of course if the demand continues to rise and trash gets out of control for example, the best move would be to hire more janitors.



Specialist staff interact with specific parts of the park management experience. Unlike generalists, their roles are fixed and can’t be done by other staff types.

• Keeper: restocks animal feeders and enrichment, cleans habitats and delivers dung to compost heaps
  
• Veterinarian: monitors habitats for sick, injured or pregnant animals, can provide feeder supplements and medication
  
• Engineer: repairs damaged fences, modules and builds high security fencing
  
• Security: accompanies staff into dangerous habitats and protects guests in the event of an emergency

There’s a lot to cover with staff and logistics gameplay, so we will be doing a more in-depth blog post when we have more in-game content to show.

This is going to fundamentally change and set the direction for Challenge mode going forward, so we’ll likely run some early feedback builds on the Public Testing Branch once we get to that stage. If you’ve been waiting for Prehistoric Kingdom to get more meat on its management bones before jumping in, please stay tuned to these dev diaries because we’ll be wanting your feedback in a few months.

This year, the team will be adding the process of ontogeny to Prehistoric Kingdom. In real time, you’ll be able to watch your animals seamlessly grow from tiny babies to gangly adolescents and of course, into the fully grown adults you’ve already been incubating in the park.



These are not just simply scaled down adults, either! Our baby animals will have softer appearances, smoother skin, different bone proportions and make the most adorable of squeaks. You can see an early test of our Edmontosaurs above, showcasing stubbier snouts, a lack of spinal ornaments, and their baby skin patterning!



Over time, the animals will seamlessly blend between their life stages, growing into their mature silhouettes and fading into their adult coloration. If you got to play or have seen footage from our old demo in 2017, you’ll know exactly how this works.

For both technical reasons and memory constraints, we will be limiting baby skin patterns to 1 per animal. This means that regardless of the skin you’ve chosen, all designs for a given animal (e.g. Edmontosaurus) will appear the same at birth and eventually grow into their selected skin color. There may be a few exceptions to this as development continues, but generally the rule is 1 baby skin per animal.

We should note that like adults, however, baby animals will have individual color variation. Each little hatchling, calf or kitten will look slightly different from another.

In Sandbox, players will be able to pick the age of an animal when creating them in the Nursery. In Challenge mode, however, we are planning to make that part of the research tree. If players want adult specimens at the beginning of their Challenge game, they’ll have to go through different means to acquire them (ooh, future mechanics!).

More info on revised animal creation and acquisition gameplay will be coming in the future.

Breeding is something that a lot of people have been requesting and we agree that it feels like the next step for ontogeny in Prehistoric Kingdom. With that said, we are focused on delivering the core experience first (animals growing up) before expanding with additional gameplay (breeding).

Arriving later this year in Update 12 is the much beloved gentle giant, Apatosaurus. This enormous creature is the first dinosaur included in Prehistoric Kingdom to be part of the superfamily known as Diplodocoidea, a group of sauropods best recognized for their immense length and whip-like tails.

We’re still working on this animal of course, painting the other skins, animating, etc. but the team really wanted to start 2024 off with an early look at one of the biggest creatures coming this year.




Coming alongside Apatosaurus, however, is an alternate species with a household name and much dubious fame.

We hope you enjoy the concept art for what will eventually become the mighty thunder lizard, Brontosaurus! Adorned with “bronto smash” neck spikes and a cluster of lethal spines at the tip of its tail, this classic from the Jurassic has never looked so good.





Grab your digging tools and call us a fossil, because on February 14th, Prehistoric Kingdom will have existed for 10 years.

When this project was first created all the way back in 2014, we were teenagers, high school students, and young adults in college. This project, iteration upon iteration, has been us learning, growing and meeting amazing like minded individuals who share a passionate love for not just this genre but prehistoric life as a whole.

It took a number of years before Prehistoric Kingdom started to go anywhere, and we’re still not as fast as the big studios making games like this, but we love our baby and we couldn’t be more grateful for having the opportunity to develop this game.

To our team, families, backers, Crytivo, players and fans; thank you.





Created by ASSASSINSPINO


Created by Hex-MSMB


Created by Incog



Thank you for reading January’s dev diary!

We hope this post has gotten you excited for the year ahead (those babies look so cute!) and that everyone is looking forward to Update 10’s arrival in February.

- The PK Team

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Welcome, Park Managers!

This is a small patch bringing over recent fixes and changes from the PTB, fixing common crashes as well as drastically improving guest pathfinding.

The team are now returning from their holiday breaks, so we hope you look forward to hearing more about Prehistoric Kingdom in 2024. As always, please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel.

• Guests
  • Guest pathfinding is significantly improved, now taking into account crowding and multiple chokepoints

• Critical
  • Fix for very common OverlapCapsule crash
    
  • Fixed a rare bug in Animal AI Recover To Navmesh that would also cause that entire capability to be defensively disabled, resulting in further downstream issues
    
  • Fix for common crash when multiple animals try to share a feeder
• Guests
  • Patched a rare but dangerous bug regarding visitors getting reset to the entrance
• Misc.
  • Fixed a number of unhandled exceptions
    
  • Minor safety improvements

• Minor CPU Optimizations

Welcome, Park Testers!

This is a small hotfix that addresses a common crash for players in Update 9.


The Public Testing Branch (PTB) is a version of Prehistoric Kingdom that can be opted-into on Steam, containing experimental and potentially breaking changes. With the help of the community, we're able to hunt down various issues and gather feedback before pushing a an update to the public version of Prehistoric Kingdom.

1. Right click Prehistoric Kingdom in your Steam Library
   
2. Go to Properties
   
3. Betas
   
4. Select 'ptb_public_testing'

Please note that it is not recommended to play Public Testing Branch parks on earlier versions of the game. Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel.

• Critical
  • Fix for common crash when multiple animals try to share a feeder

Welcome, Park Testers!

This PTB release improves guest pathfinding and game stability with various crash fixes for what could be experienced in Update 9.

You should see guests making better use of their walkable space, especially when encountering multiple chokepoints throughout the park. Previously, they would almost exclusively form a single chokepoint. We have ideas on how to further improve guest pathfinding which will be implemented early next year.

Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel.


The Public Testing Branch (PTB) is a version of Prehistoric Kingdom that can be opted-into on Steam, containing experimental and potentially breaking changes. With the help of the community, we're able to hunt down various issues and gather feedback before pushing a an update to the public version of Prehistoric Kingdom.

1. Right click Prehistoric Kingdom in your Steam Library
   
2. Go to Properties
   
3. Betas
   
4. Select 'ptb_public_testing'

Please note that it is not recommended to play Public Testing Branch parks on earlier versions of the game. Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel.

• Guests
  • Guest pathfinding is significantly improved, now taking into account crowding and multiple chokepoints

• Critical
  • Fix for very common OverlapCapsule crash
    
  • Fixed a rare bug in Animal AI Recover To Navmesh that would also cause that entire capability to be defensively disabled, resulting in further downstream issues
• Guests
  • Patched a rare but dangerous bug regarding visitors getting reset to the entrance
• Misc.
  • Fixed a number of unhandled exceptions
    
  • Minor safety improvements

• Minor CPU Optimizations

Welcome, Park Managers!

Today we have a mini-patch disguised as a hotfix for you, adding a new Spinosaurus animation in addition to some extra sound variations. We have also made a few more changes to the animals as well as giving Muttaburrasaurus the correct formation.

The team is currently investigating a few crash issues that have been appearing, but as always, please send your bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel. Providing the player log and save files will allow us to hunt down these issues a lot quicker!

• Animals
  • Added digging behavioral one shot to Spinosaurus (mudcrab gets audibly annihilated, onlookers shocked)
• Audio
  • Added broadcast variations to Spinosaurus
    
  • Added broadcast variations to Carcharodontosaurus

• Animals
  • Animals now begin life with randomized need values
    
  • Animals should now try to stay around their appropriate animation speeds during locomotion, making them less likely to stay at transitional values for extended periods (e.g. halfway between walk and run)
    
  • Muttaburrasaurus is now properly found in the Mackunda Formation (removed Winton Formation)
    
  • Updated Smilodon ‘Dauntless’ skin icon to better match its new coloration
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Adjusted rendering distance for particle VFX
• Foliage
  • Optimized Marula 3
• UI/UX
  • Removed the now obsolete ‘Min. Exhibit Size’ stat from the nursery animal preview screen

• Animals
  • Fixed animals having their decision making process completely overwhelmed by swimming, which prevented them from satisfying basic needs
    
  • Animals will now avoid trying to interact with feeders from a direction that would place them too far underwater
    
  • Improved animal individual pathing randomization
• Guests
  • Fixed a common bug where visitors would get stuck walking to particular areas endlessly
    
  • Visitors should utilize much more of the navigable path area, prioritizing wide open spaces and avoiding narrow choke points
• Foliage
  • Fixed green seams on Acacia 2
• UI/UX
  • Fixed the Animal Info Menu displaying low welfare stats and welfare issues with the ‘Animal Welfare’ and ‘Animal Habitat Welfare’ gameplay settings turned off
• VO
  • Fixed text overflow for one of Nigel’s Spinosaurus lines

• Fixed several major memory leaks
  
• Minor CPU Optimizations

• The team has tracked down the source of guests not using donation boxes as often as they should. This issue is caused by guests not observing animals properly, rather than something wrong with the donation boxes.
  
  Unfortunately, this is going to be quite an involved fix

Welcome, Park Managers!

Update 9 is now available! This patch introduces 4 new animals, swimming, a new map, biome, as well as a new selection of font styles. Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel.

The team will be working on hotfixes for Update 9 over the next few days in addition to adding a few additional animations that didn't make it into the initial release. This will be our last major update for the year, as the team will be going on a short break over the holiday period.

This release also adjusts our version numbers to better reflect our original versioning scheme, which we were too silly to follow through on. Oopsies!

Your patience this year has been greatly appreciated, and we look forward to sharing our plans for Prehistoric Kingdom with you in January's Dev Diary in 2024. For all the details on what's changed in Update 9, please be sure to read the full patch notes at the bottom of this post!

- The PK Team


Expand your kingdom's collection with 4 brand new species: Ouranosaurus, Muttaburrasaurus, Carcharodontosaurus and Spinosaurus!






Take the plunge with swimming! This new behaviour allows animals to cross rivers and explore deep water bodies by swimming across the surface.


Every species has varying degrees of water affinity, meaning that some animals like Spinosaurus frequently try to seek out water, while other species will try to avoid it all costs.

Build in the heart of the savanna with our new map set in the grassland biome. With sparse vegetation and flat terrain, this location is perfect for builders!




Adding 9 new types of plants, the grassland biome is one of our most versatile climates yet. Alongside classic trees like the Acacia, the grassland biome also comes with, well... grasses!




A collection of new styles are now available for the modular letter pieces. Coming in a range of different themes, these fonts are the perfect way to change up your park's signage.






Due to the introduction of water-based locomotion, all navmeshes will have to be regenerated! This means that upon initial load, your saved games may take longer to enter. Please resave your games once loaded in.

We have also made slope limit changes to the navmesh, so if you had animals that we were previously stuck in surprising places (e.g. rocks, roofs) you'll have to move them back down to an appropriate area.

• We will be fixing as many crashes as possible as they're reported. Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel.
  
• Muttaburrasaurus is missing Nigel voicelines! We will be adding them next year when we do our next recording session with Nigel
  
• We’re still tuning the render distance for small objects, so some items may disappear sooner than expected
  
• Animals do not animate while in the Nursery due to the new locomotion system. They will animate again in the future
  
• Animal IKs are a work in progress and will be improved in future updates
  
• Animals may jitter when resting or sleeping in shallow water
  
• Guests can pick some pretty funky paths! We're in the middle of reworking our technical backend for path choices, so this will be fixed in a following update

• NEW ANIMAL: Muttaburrasaurus
  
• NEW ANIMAL: Ouranosaurus
  
• NEW ANIMAL: Carcharodontosaurus
  
• NEW ANIMAL: Spinosaurus
  
• NEW ANIMAL BEHAVIOR: Swimming
  • Take a plunge with swimming! Every species has varying degrees of water affinity, meaning some love swimming while others will try to avoid water at all costs
• NEW MAP: Ngorongoro Crater
  • Set in a beautiful Tanzanian crater, this map offers flat landscapes with sparse forests and grasses
• NEW BIOME: Grassland
  • Explore the new grassland biome with a variety of trees and small shruberry, including highly versatile grass pieces
• NEW: Text Fonts
  • Change up the vibe of your park signage with a collection of new font styles

• Gameplay
  • Added new excavation sites in Africa and Australia:
    • Elrhaz Formation
      
    • Kem Kem Group
      
    • Winton Formation
• Animals
  • Added mannerism additive animations to animals previously missing them:
    • Dilophosaurus
      
    • Scelidosaurus
      
    • Velociraptor
  • Added swimming to all animals: any creature is now able to freely navigate the surface of the water. Animals have buoyancy, making submerging smooth and natural
    
  • Animals are able to avoid and seek water navigation depending on their species, making certain animals more water-averse while Spinosaurus and Deinocheirus, among others, love getting their feet wet!
    
  • Animals now get visibly wet when entering the water or swimming, with the visual being based on the waterline height relative to body size
    
  • Added new animal names from Hausa, Arabic, ancient Egyptian and assorted Aboriginal
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Added several Font styles spread across all themes in the game
    
  • Added Silhouette pieces for Muttaburrasaurus, Ouranosaurus, Spinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus
    
  • Added Human Keeper Silhouette piece
• Foliage
  • Added Acacia 1, 2, 3
    
  • Added American Tarwort 1, 2
    
  • Added Digitaria Dry Grass 1, 2
    
  • Added Digitaria Grass 1, 2
    
  • Added Elephant Grass 1, 2 (found in gardening!)
    
  • Added Pampas Grass 1, 2, 3
    
  • Added Triodia Dry Grass 1, 2
    
  • Added Triodia Grass 1, 2
    
  • Added Marula 1, 2, 3

• Balance
  • Buffed the Diesel Generator and Solar Panel
• Gameplay
  • New games will always default to Sunny weather for the first three months
• Animals
  • Animals can now be placed in water
    
  • Increased run movement speed for most animals to better match how they were pre-Update 8
    
  • The ‘Vibrant’ Edmontosaurus skin now has subtle iridescence
    
  • Decreased overall genetic skin mutation chance
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Changed the way fonts are colored by separating emissivity into its own coloring buffer for greater control - the first color slot purely controls their coloration whereas the ‘glowiness’ is now controlled in the second color buffer
    
  • Added emissive coloring to the 2nd slot for Silhouette pieces
    
  • Fixed Pachyrhinosaurus Silhouette piece
    
  • Improved the water VFX pieces
• Environment
  • Increased choppy water’s transparency and made it more tropical blue
    
  • Adjustments to underwater fog colors
• UI/UX
  • Map selection is now automatically randomized every time the New Game menu is opened in the main menu
• Post Processing
  • Reduced overall bloom intensity
• Audio
  • Brought back animal footstep audio events from prior game versions
    
  • Wading sounds when walking through water should better reflect the size of the animal
    
  • Footstep terrain materials should sound more correct for small animals
    
  • Adjusted the camera’s water entry/exit sounds to be softer at slow speeds
    
  • Adjusted some ambient frequencies while underwater or during rain
    
  • Adjusted sharp frequencies on small metal fence placement
    
  • Stopped ambient birds from playing while in the Nursery
    
  • Ambient animal sounds in the Nursery are now more audible

• Critical
  • Fixed a major memory leak in pathfinding, should help with the excessive performance loss over time while playing!
    
  • Fixed various smaller memory leaks
• Animals
  • Fixed an animation bug that could cause animals to get stuck
• Foliage
  • Fixed missing collider on Mangrove 1
• Environment
  • Fixed fresh water specularity
• UI/UX
  • Improved globe scaling in the main menu so that the map selection globe won’t overlay on other GUI elements anymore
    
  • Fixed a building menu issue causing the ‘Enrichment’ and ‘Gardening’ sections to not properly load
    
  • Fixed an issue causing the time of day and weather cycles to not automatically loop in Challenge Mode
    
  • Fixed an issue causing the destruction icon and notification to not properly refresh themselves after repairing structures
• Rendering
  • Fixed a visual glitch resulting in shadows not updating properly for different modular styles
• Audio
  • Fixed an issue introduced in Update 8 that prevented some niche audio events from triggering (tail, throat, etc)
    
  • Fixed an issue introduced in Update 8 that would cause some sounds to end abruptly
    
  • Fixed offset audio for Edmontosaurus unique behavioral one shot

• Massively improved modular loading performance, overall reducing loading times and responsiveness
  
• Improved draw distances of modular objects to be more optimal and to better reflect individual piece scale
  
• CPU Optimizations
  
• Minor Memory Optimizations
  
• Particle Effects Optimized