Frontier Developments Announces Disney Game Collaboration
Frontier Developments, the Cambridge-based studio behind Planet Coaster and Jurassic World Evolution, is making a game with Disney.
The company announced the collaboration on 3 September 2026 in a press release on its own website, describing the project as a new game based on "Disney's iconic portfolio of IP" — the collection of characters, worlds and stories the entertainment giant owns. No release window, platform, or specific Disney property was named.
Frontier will fund the game entirely on its own and publish it itself, meaning no external publisher is bankrolling development or handling distribution. That is a notable choice for a studio working with one of the largest entertainment brands in the world, and it leaves Frontier carrying the financial risk in exchange for full creative and commercial control.
CEO Jo Cooke said the collaboration "reinforces Frontier's strategy of developing world-class creative management simulation game franchises" and that the mission is to connect "a passionate creative community of players with one of the world's most iconic and beloved brands." Creative management simulation, or CMS, is the genre Frontier has built its reputation on: games where players design, build and manage parks, zoos or entire dinosaur resorts, then watch visitors react in real time.
Frontier's CMS portfolio includes Planet Coaster, Planet Zoo and Jurassic World Evolution — franchises that have sold millions and attracted a dedicated community of blueprint-sharing, ride-replicating players. The studio also has an unannounced Planet game in development, separate from the Disney project.
For Disney, the deal adds another studio to a games licensing roster that has stretched across decades. The idea of exploring Disney's parks in virtual form goes back at least to 1990, when Capcom released Adventures in the Magic Kingdom for the Nintendo Entertainment System — a game that let players roam a pixelated version of the real parks. Frontier itself walked similar ground in 2011 with Kinect Disneyland Adventures, which turned Disneyland into an explorable 3D playground for the Xbox 360's motion controller.
Neither Frontier nor Disney has said which Disney properties the new game will draw on, whether it will involve the parks, the animation catalogue, Marvel, Star Wars or something else entirely. The collaboration is early enough that no footage, concept art or title has surfaced.
What is clear is the bet Frontier is making. By self-funding and self-publishing a Disney game, the studio is putting its own capital behind the marriage of two things it knows well: management simulation and beloved brands. Whether that pays off will depend on execution — and on which corner of Disney's vault Frontier gets to open.
