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Dev Diary: August 2025

[p][/p][p]https://www.patreon.com/c/BlueMeridian[/p][p][/p][p]Welcome to the August Development Update! [/p][p]In case you somehow missed it, Update 15 released just under a week ago! This monumental update added new behaviors for breeding and courtship alongside many new standout features like paleobotany, foliage browsing and new enrichment feeders.[/p][p]We highly recommend you give the patch notes a read if you haven’t already as they’re formatted like a mini-blog post! There’s lots of great stuff to check out.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]This is also a great time to point out that Prehistoric Kingdom is currently 30% off until September 1st! Be sure to grab it while you can as the sale will end very soon.[/p][p][/p][p]Alright! Due to this update being so recent, the team are currently taking a little break so please forgive us for this Dev Diary being short! We just wanted to quickly touch base before going back to work and refresh the community on our plans for the future. So…[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Having now launched U15, the team is very happy with its reception and feedback from the community. At its peak, we almost broke 1,000 concurrent players on Steam which is the highest number we’ve had since launching into Early Access.[/p][p]While there’s always work to be done and pesky bugs to resolve, finally having both breeding and seamless growth in the game has been a real full circle moment for us. We truly mean it when we say thank you for supporting PK! We could not have made it this far without you.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Comparison by Discord user ASSASSINSPINO![/p][p][/p][h2]An Additional Patch[/h2][p]So, what’s next? Very soon, some team members will be jumping on to Update 15.1.  This extra release will add the remaining features from U15 that were not ready to ship, as well as addressing some reported issues such as pregnancies randomly disappearing. Here’s our original quote from the patch notes:[/p][p][/p][p]“Although this is not how we planned to ship Update 15, unfortunate circumstances over the last few weeks have meant that we have elected to prioritise the wellbeing of our team members and focus on the core breeding mechanics.[/p][p]These features will be arriving in a second update coming in September:[/p][p]• Animal Head IK[/p][p]• Interspecies threat displays and fleeing (however this CAN occur during courtship right now!)[/p][p]We apologise and hope you can respect our decision on this. The team currently expects Update 15.1 to arrive before the end of September - only a few weeks away.”[/p][p][/p][h2]The Road Ahead: Update 16[/h2][p]After working on two major animal-related updates back-to-back, it’s safe to say our team is feeling ready to move onto something that doesn’t relate to growth or breeding! While 15.1 gets worked on, the rest of the team will be entering pre-production for U16. This will be another huge and frankly transformative update, this time focused on expanding the gameplay and park management experience.[/p][p]While we aren’t yet ready to divulge the exact details of everything coming, you’ll start to see more images and info over the next few months. For now, here’s a taste of what we’re looking at:[/p][p][/p][h3]Vivariums[/h3][p][/p][p](previously known as Terrariums or Mini-Exhibits)[/p][p]Vivariums are placable habitat modules used to house small or specialized animals like what you’d find at a real zoo. They will allow players to effectively build customizable reptile houses or aviaries.[/p][p]We consider an animal to be a vivarium species if their size or movement style does not mesh well with the dynamic nature of regular animals. Without vivariums, we would not consider including animals like Microraptor, Archaeopteryx and Yi in the game.[/p][p][/p][p]To keep their dev cost low, these species do not have ontogeny, multiple skin designs or a true AI brain. They are an expansion to the Mini-Aviary idea currently in the game, adding new options for a terrestrial and amphibious tank alongside the usual arboreal housing for climbers and gliders. They’ll play animations at preset points around the habitat and sometimes even traverse it depending on where they spawn each time you look at a vivarium.[/p][p]A key part of the vivarium upgrade is to overhaul the animation system and make it much easier for us to setup new species. This is actually why no new animals have been added to the current Mini-Aviary since beta! It’s old, rigid and not as nice to use as our updated pipeline.[/p][p]In terms of management, players will need to make sure staff can access the back of a vivarium in order to feed, clean and treat the animals for diseases. We’ve included some pictures below to show what we’d like players to be able to build when they combine our modular building pieces with the vivarium modules.[/p][p]Creative Commons Reference Photos (with authors): Image 1, Image 2[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Vets, Diseases & Death[/h3][p][/p][p]Vets will monitor habitats, tend to nests and alert the player to any disease that they find along the way. Depending on the severity, animals can be treated in the field directly. If it’s a serious or contagious issue, players should move their animal into the upcoming Quarantine Bay module.[/p][p]This module must be stocked with a new medicine resource that vets use to cure and restore your animals. There will be a range of Quarantine Bay sizes available, with the largest versions supporting sauropods.[/p][p]With all that said, however, in the worst case scenario it’ll still be possible for animals to die if they become too sick or old. :-([/p][p][/p][h3]Flat Rides[/h3][p][/p][p]Flat rides are a new type of attraction that can provide guests with entertainment or a better look at your animals! As mentioned in the January Dev Diary, flat rides include things like a ferris wheel, theater or a tethered balloon ride that goes straight up to provide a vantage point.[/p][p]We would love to eventually include track or tour rides, but obviously those have a significantly higher dev cost. We’ll have to see how things go![/p][p][/p][h3]Staff Progression 2.0[/h3][p][/p][p]To make things more cohesive, staff training and salary management will be merged into a unified system, letting players individually train staff. As the skill level of a staff member goes up, so does their salary! If they become too expensive, the player may have to demote them and lose access to their skills until promoting them again.[/p][p]We have a few other ideas cooking on how to improve the staff experience, but we’d like to wait a bit longer before announcing any specifics.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Since all of the remaining updates until full release are equally large, we estimate the minimum development window between releases to be around 3-4 months (basically what you’re already used to). As always, you can check out our roadmap to see what’s on the way and we’ll keep you in the loop if things change![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Update 16[/h2][h2]New Vivarium Species[/h2][p]There’s something chirping in the bushes and it’s not a bird! This must be the tiny Jurassic theropod, Compsognathus. Our little finger-biter here will be one of the smallest animals in Prehistoric Kingdom, ending up a little shorter than a baby Velociraptor.[/p][p][/p][p]Compies and similarly-sized land critters will be housed in the terrestrial vivarium, making it easy to keep track of them. We can’t wait to show more pictures once we’ve started properly developing their habitats! They’re going to be so much fun.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]And that’s all for the moment! We’ll see you again next month for September’s diary as we move deeper into working on Update 16. In the meantime, there’s quite a lot to play with in Update 15, so we hope you enjoy everything we just added.[/p][p] [/p][p][/p][p]Created by gemini98[/p][p][/p][p]Created by Unga[/p][p][/p][p]Created by SammyChan14[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Created by Khaidu[/p][p]Thank you for reading August's dev diary![/p][p]Don’t forget to keep your eyes peeled for U15.1 and keep posting all those gorgeous screenshots on our Discord server![/p][p]- The PK Team [/p]