The Lost Wild: A Dinosaur Horror Game 20 Years in the Making
A first-person dinosaur horror game born from a teenager's modding experiments has grown into one of the more distinctive titles on the horizon. The Lost Wild, developed by Great Ape Games and published by Annapurna Interactive, is scheduled for release in 2027 on Windows PC and PlayStation 5.
The game was shown during Sony's State of Play broadcast in June 2026, resurfacing with footage of an evasion-based survival horror experience set in overgrown research facilities teeming with prehistoric life (GameInformer). Players control a character named Saskia, who wakes on a mysterious island and must scavenge, distract, hide, and run to survive encounters with predatory dinosaurs.
What sets the game apart is its approach to the creatures themselves. Dinosaurs in The Lost Wild behave like wild animals rather than monsters — hunting as a pack, acting as apex predators, reacting to the world around them. The vision, as described by Great Ape Games CEO Nick Gregory, was to show what it might feel like to walk alongside a dinosaur in a natural environment where it behaved like an animal rather than a mindless killer (GameSpot).
The project's roots stretch back more than two decades. Gregory began tinkering as a teenager with Operation Flashpoint, a military shooter released in 2001, using its mission editor and modding tools to teach himself modelling, scripting, keyframe animation, and design. A few years later he moved on to Crysis and its underlying CryEngine, which he felt was a significant technological leap forward. He joined the Crymod forums, a community hub for modders working with Crytek's tools, and became fascinated by the maps, models, skins, and full game conversions people were building.
The first dinosaur Gregory modelled in CryEngine looked surprisingly good, so he started posting work-in-progress images online. Those posts attracted a volunteer team of roughly 15 developers — artists, level designers, programmers, and sound designers. One recruit, a developer named Tim who joined straight out of university, is now a fellow co-founder and Creative Director at Great Ape Games. Several other members of that early volunteer team now hold senior positions across the games industry.
During development, the team improvised creatively with the technology available. At one point they retrofitted Crytek's chicken AI — the code governing the behaviour of a farm animal in Crysis — to control one of the dinosaurs. Gregory describes himself as a kitbasher and generalist rather than a strong developer, crediting his abilities to establishing a vision, finding talented people, and bringing them together.
The game is intended for a mature audience, with frequent depictions of animal-on-player, animal-on-animal, and animal-on-NPC violence, including gore. It will not feature nudity or sexual content.
For anyone who has ever wanted a dinosaur game where the creatures inspire awe before they inspire terror, The Lost Wild is shaping up to be exactly that — a survival horror experience where running is the only option and the thing chasing you is not a monster but an animal doing what animals do.
