The Lost Wild is Alien Isolation with Dinosaurs (Summer Game Fest 2026 Exclusive)

The Lost Wild was one of the best things that I saw at Summer Game Fest Play Days 2026. The elevator pitch for The Lost Wild is that it isn’t a walking simulator or the next Dino Crisis, it’s Jurassic Park meets Alien Isolation and there’s five very good reasons why, so it goes without saying that The Lost Wild is already one of our most anticipated games of 2027

The Lost Wild Preview

In 2022, Great Ape Games, a small indie team from Brighton, UK revealed The Lost Wild. A survival horror that looked too good to be true coming from such a small indie team made up of just a few dozen people. Sure enough, the years passed by and nothing was heard from, making it seem like the initial assessment was correct and it was just another game to turn into vaporware like Little Devil Inside. RIP

Fast Forward to June 2026 and Great Ape Games have re-emerged with a brand new trailer, complete with gameplay, a media demo and even a release window (according to the team 2027 is the goal). At Summer Game Fest Play Days 2026, we had the opportunity to sit down with a few members of Great Ape Games, and see a behind closed doors demo to understand why The Lost Wild is a different breed of survival horror.

What is The Lost Wild?

In The Lost Wild, you play as Saskia, a young girl who wakes up on a mysterious island only to find that it had been overrun by prehistoric creatures. You don’t know how you got here, why you’re here, but you can quickly deduce that this occurrence isn’t related to time traveling, since the island has infrastructure. There are vehicles, electricity and in the distance, you can see buildings all around the island. When you get closer to these compounds, you can see that everything has been abandoned and something terrible has happened. If you’ve seen 1993’s Jurassic Park, or any of the six movies since, you should know that life finds a way and understand that this is one big pile of shit you’re in.

As I mentioned earlier, The Lost Wild is Alien Isolation with dinosaurs for many reasons. To begin with you are the prey in this game, but instead of xenomorphs, it’s an allosaurus and other very dangerous and very previously extinct creatures. Furthermore, the gameplay loop is extremely familiar as these creatures are smart and you need to learn how to outsmart them whether that includes evading, distracting or even hide. In addition, the tables don’t sound like they will ever turn with Saskia becoming a killing machine. Weapons would likely be futile against these massive creatures anyways, but Great Ape Games mentioned they wanted to portray these creatures as animals, not monsters and with that in mind, there would only be non lethal weapons in the game. They wanted to create a grounded experience based on Paleo accuracy for how dinosaurs behave as hunters and not action movie stars. Finally, and most importantly, the Game Director of The Lost Wild also served as the Lead Gameplay Designer on Alien Isolation when he was at Creative Assembly and this is immediately evident when you see gameplay in action.

All of these factors mean that The Lost Wild is a survival horror full of slow burning tension, just like there was when you were hiding in a locker with your motion sensor. Yet, despite all of these factors, The Lost Wild might have a familiarity to it, but it strongly carves out its own identity in a variety of ways.

It might not be coming until 2027, but it’s already arguably our most anticipated indie games coming next year.

At Summer Game Fest 2026, we sat down with Nick Gregory, the Founder and CEO of Great Ape Games and Gary Napper, the Game Director of The Last Wild to talk about why there aren’t more dinosaur games, what players can expect from the narrative, what might surprise people about the game and so much more.

The Lost Wild Interview

OK, we're here with Grade Ape games. Can you guys tell me a bit about yourself?

Nick - Uh, yeah, well, I'm Nick, co-founder and CEO of Great Ape Games.

Gary - I'm Gary the game director at Great Ape Games.

What is Lost Wild?

Nick - I think we have slightly different interpretations, but for me, it's about building a game, which is cinematically strong, portraying dinosaurs as animals, not monsters, while also maintaining their believability through paleo accuracy, and making sure the anatomy and the way they move is realistic and true to life.

In your presentation, you talked about wanting to do [The Lost Wild] for a long time. 1993 long time, since the first time you saw Jurassic Park?

Nick - Yeah, I mean, obviously, having reference to those kind of films is flattering. As a teenager, I was heavily influenced by both kind of movies and a larger array of movies as well. I think for me at that age, game engines were becoming more accessible and in particular Crysis. That's really what fuelled that curiosity for me, being able to just dive into an engine, having no idea what I was doing, obviously, at the time, and just having kind of exploration and kind of exploring, you know, what could be done here. Whether it was placing trees down or building a little level. That's really where it started for me.

Gary, you were the lead designer on Alien Isolation?

Gary - That's correct. I was.

Now you're the Game Director on The Lost Wild?

Gary - I am, yes.

Can you tell me what you bring from previous experience?

Gary - I mean, I've been aware of this game for quite some time. I've been chatting to Nick in the background and just hearing just all the exciting things they're getting up to. So when Annapurna came along and that deal was formed, the chance to, you know, get some backing and build a studio, it was just, it was such an exciting thing for me. And I guess I've been in games 26 years now. I've been a director of a few places, and what I like the thing I bring is a kind of helping to clarify the vision, helping the team understand the magic that they've got, and kind of focus their efforts in the way that's gonna, you know, get them the best outcomes. So help them realize that they've got something pretty magical here.

Do you think there's any shared DNA between Alien Isolation and The Lost Wild?

Gary - Yeah, I think games for me are always a product of the team, and everyone's experience and the knowledge and the skills they have coming together. So, I'd say there's definitely influences from things like Alien Isolation, but also go as far as to say things like Everwild that I've been working on recently, because that was all about creating these grounded, you know, believable characters, these fantastical behaviours. So, I think we've got, you know, a wide range of skill and input on our teams. So, I think there's plenty of games out there who've taken influence from them. Ultimately, it comes down to the skill of what we can execute on together, and that's where the magic is.

Why did you guys choose a protagonist that seemed out of their depth?

Gary - I love this one, yeah. Because the whole thing for this game since the beginning, the magical thing is asking yourself the question, what would it be like to be around dinosaurs and having to survive? And not, like, big action movie dinosaurs that are specifically, you know, doing all these power moves and things like that. Not carrying, you know, heavy weapons or anything. It's just the grounded feeling of being in this world. So we needed a character, who was believable, who was someone who's just like you and me, like not, you know, a super action hero or anything, just someone who's believable to be in a believable situation. And with that is a narrative we've entwined with it, where it's a very personal story that almost gives you a grounding to view some of the more fantastic elements, like the dinosaurs through. So, yeah, her being someone you can relate to and understand and be like, Yeah, this is what I would do in that situation is a really important thing.

Will you ever be able to fight back in any sort of way?

Nick - You can definitely defend yourself, and, obviously, what you saw today was just a small example of, you know, borrowing those mechanics of buying yourself time, evading. But you know, obviously, we're adding flavour as you go and complete the game. But it'll be based around those kind of core principles.

Gary - Okay, I think I'd answer that as well by saying, the thing we'd love when players play this is game is, if they engage with it, and they actually don't want to harm the dinosaurs, because I was pushing them as believable animals. They're not like monsters that you see and just straightaway want to kill. There's something that you almost have an awe and respect for, that when you see them, you just want to get away from them and just let them get on with their lives. There's this kind of healthy level of respect. I think if we did let you kill them, we'd want you to feel guilt about it. Like, what have I done?

Why do you think more games haven't been done with dinosaurs?

Nick - It's a good question. I think, from my perspective, it's actually really hard to make a dinosaur game, you know, with the challenges that they bring, you know, the animation, the AI, the rigging, even just for navigating for a space, believably. We were kind of crazy to think we could take that challenge on, and we have over time. So I think there is a barrier to entry, I would say, for sure. And we've tried to build a team with that kind of experience, you know, to bring them together, you know, with strong emphasis on animals, and, you know, we have a lot of creature animators and some fantastic AI programmers. So, yeah, that's one reason, I think. And maybe players are just used to the kind of current experience of dinosaurs and animals, and it does take time to kind of shift shift that perspective a little bit. And, you know, we've been working on this for many years now, and we've only now been able to show you back work, and I think seeing the trailer drop and all the positive reactions we've had. I think people are like, Oh, you can do a dinosaur game slightly differently. We just happen to have done it first, but, you know, we started very early, but it's taken time, basically.

Gary - I'd say it's actually a bunch of dinosaur games out there at the moment. We've been looking at them just like, yeah, it's a good time to be a dinosaur fan. Dinosaurs are back, yeah. And I think the fun thing for us is just how nice it is to see everyone trying something slightly different. And just seeing all the flavours. I mean, it's like Star Wars. It diversified, so everyone's got their own little flavour of what they want, and I think you're starting to see that with dinosaur games at the moment.

At the end [of the demo], we started learning about a corporation who's doing unknown things on an island. Can we talk about where that narrative might lead to?

Nick - I don't want to spoil the surprise. All I would say is, not all is what it seems, and being part of the Annapurna family or studio, as a publisher, narrative is a very important part of that piece, so, you know, expect depth and twists and turns along the way. But yeah, there is definitely a mystery to one cover on the island, and I kind of want to save that for the players when we get it.

Equal parts mystery and survival horror?

Nick - Yes, exactly. It's kind of a nice smorgasbord of those things.

Gary - One of the key things that players are asking, and we've had people ask us, as well, when you see their trailer, is how are the dinosaurs there? I think that's one of the main threads that we know, we let the player explore an answer. It's also really nice being an original IP. We get to explore the world we create. So there aren't many restrictions on the narrative side, and as Nick said, Annapurna have been brilliant bringing in that kind of narrative support, you know, gut check, the things that we're writing, to kind of bring it to a bigger audience.

If there's one thing in this game that would surprise people?

Nick - That's a good question. How do I say this without spoiling?

Gary - I was gonna talk about the mechanics, because I think there's a real nice surprise to see how deep the mechanics are and how deep the behaviours are for each of our creatures and how they're slightly different. And for me, I can't wait for players to learn how to use one type of tool. I think they've understood it, try it on a different dinosaur, and then suddenly see something completely different. I think there's a real good moment of rug pull and shock for the player, Oh, this is something different.

You gotta adapt?

Gary -Yeah.

Nick - all I would say is, um, the game isn't full of predators. So there's kind of other dinosaurs represented in the game. So that might come as a surprise because obviously predators are seen as, like, the main form of entertainment, but, you know, we've tried our best to put in a good spread of species.

All right, guys, thank you very much. 2027 is what it's looking like right now?

Nick - Yeah. That's what's on the marketing materials.

Gary - If it goes to plan, yeah.