Dino Crisis is a survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom originally for the PlayStation console in 1999. It is the first installment in the Dino Crisis series and was developed by the same team behind Capcom's Resident Evil series, including director Shinji Mikami, and shares many similarities with it. The story follows Regina, a special operations agent sent with a team to investigate a secluded island research facility. Finding the place overrun with dinosaurs, Regina must fight through the facility to discover its secrets and ultimately escape alive.
Instead of the pre-rendered backgrounds of the Resident Evil games that preceded it, Dino Crisis uses an original real-time engine with 3D environments. Gameplay features traditional survival horror mechanics including action and puzzles, and it was developed to have more consistent visceral terror with the dinosaurs being quick, intelligent, and violent. Capcom would later market the game as "panic horror" as opposed to "survival horror" due to these design changes. The team used carnivorous animals as references for animating the dinosaurs and programming their behaviors. Mikami's vision for the game was not completely fulfilled, as he wanted to develop more complex dinosaur artificial intelligence. However, he did believe the team was able to create sufficiently detailed environments despite hardware limitations.
Dino Crisis was a critical and commercial success, with the PlayStation version selling over 2.4 million copies. Critics drew heavy comparisons to Resident Evil, with some describing it as "Resident Evil with dinosaurs." They also praised the game's intensity, graphics, and gameplay. Some criticism was directed towards the lack of dinosaur variety, repetitive environments, and tedious puzzles. Dino Crisis was ported to the Sega Dreamcast and Microsoft Windows in 2000, and was re-released for the PlayStation Network in 2006. Two different versions for the Game Boy Color were in development, but both were cancelled.
