WDR Studios Shares Terrible Lizards Design Details Ahead of Launch

With launch approaching, WDR Studios has shared more about the design choices behind Terrible Lizards. In an October 27 PlayStation Blog post, director John W. Gelardi explains how the team combines first-person platforming with desperate escapes from dinosaurs. Alongside the studio’s earlier development diaries, these insights offer a closer look at how movement, creatures, sound, and storytelling come together at Dalton’s Dinos. This roadside attraction serves as the starting point for the horror adventure, giving the developers a setting in which to bring their ideas together and put players’ movement skills to the test.

How WDR Brings Movement, Creatures, and Horror Together

With Terrible Lizards, WDR aims to balance fear with the enjoyment of mastering movement. Gelardi describes the game as a first-person 3D platformer in which players run, jump, slide, wall-run, bounce, and grab ledges to navigate their surroundings. Drawing on movement in first-person action shooters, the team sought a balance between floatiness and control. He highlights momentum, consistent speed, and aerial adjustments as key elements: players can correct an overshot jump or move sideways while airborne.

Those abilities become essential because Terrible Lizards offers no weapons or option to fight back. According to Digital Pajamas, the creatures are even faster than players in a straight line, making terrain something they must use to escape.

Jumping, climbing, and sliding therefore serve a direct purpose in each escape. Compared with Deathground’s survival horror approach, which emphasizes stealth and cooperation against dinosaurs, WDR’s design explores another side of the same premise by placing traversal at the center of the experience.

These pursuits unfold at Dalton’s Dinos, a dinosaur-themed roadside attraction along Route 66 in New Mexico in 1992. A broken-down car brings the protagonist there looking for help, but the staff have vanished, and a voice on the telephone asks them to find a missing child. WDR drew on American road-trip culture and mascot horror to create the location. Familiar dinosaur imagery from a family attraction becomes material for horror, while exploration takes players into secret areas beneath it.

Creature design involved considering both appearance and implementation within the game’s environments. In its October Q&A, WDR discussed Brontosaurus, Allosaurus, and a human–Dilophosaurus hybrid. The original hybrid concept leaned toward a raptor before the team switched to Dilophosaurus, whose distinctive crest gave it a recognizable silhouette.

Brontosaurus presented particular difficulties when implementing roaming AI because of its enormous size. This behind-the-scenes detail illustrates how creature design also has to account for the spaces in which those creatures operate.

Sound further develops Dalton’s Dinos’ identity. WDR’s audio devlog describes music at the attraction inspired by John Williams, alongside tape-wobble effects reminiscent of old cassettes. For the horror sequences, the team uses dissonance, unresolved chords, and silence to build tension. Storytelling also adapts to the gameplay: the main path delivers a complete narrative, while notes, audio tapes, and environmental details offer more information to players who want to explore further.

What interests me about Terrible Lizards is how WDR connects these choices around the experience of escaping, while leaving room for players to investigate what happened at Dalton’s Dinos. How effectively it all comes together remains to be seen when the game launches on October 29.

To learn more, check out WDR’s official design breakdown, and don’t forget to visit our price comparison platform to track prices and buy Terrible Lizards as soon as the game officially launches.