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 with her team.

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.

Mikami's vision for the game was not completely fulfilled, as he wanted to develop more complex dinosaur artificial intelligence.

[5] Dino Crisis features survival horror gameplay that is very similar to Capcom's early Resident Evil titles.

[7] Regina's inventory may include key items, weapons, ammo, and medical supplies—the latter two of which she can only hold a limited amount.

Sometimes "DANGER" may flash on the screen in perilous situations, at which point the player should push all the controller buttons as rapidly as possible to survive.

Two types of medical supplies are available in the game: Med Paks, which heals player health, and Hemostats, which stop bleeding injuries.

He learns that Dr. Edward Kirk, a world-renowned scientist who was reported dead three years ago, is leading a secret weapons project within the facility.

sends four agents (Regina, Gail, Rick, and Cooper) to search, apprehend, and acquire Kirk and return him to custody.

Once inside the base, the agents discover the eviscerated and partially devoured corpses of security personnel and scientists.

After Regina gets the stabilizer and initializer and uses them to overload the reactors, the energy shakes the base, causing a vent to fall on Gail allowing Kirk to get free again.

In the game's best ending, Regina knocks out Gail and chases Kirk by herself, resulting in his capture and the team escaping by helicopter.

Dino Crisis was directed and produced by Shinji Mikami, and developed by a team dubbed Capcom Production Studio 4.

He cited The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Aliens as influences, and liked dinosaurs because they were large, strong, fearsome, and violent.

[10] Dino Crisis utilizes an original 3D engine with real-time environments, as opposed to the pre-rendered backgrounds of the Resident Evil series.

[9] Since it is unknown how dinosaurs moved in real life, the team had to use their imagination and animals such as crocodiles and dogs as reference.

[13][14] The Japanese Playstation version of the game has a software-protection that detects if a mod-chip is installed in the console, refusing to start even if the cd-rom is original.

A top-down interpretation of Dino Crisis was in development by UK company M4 for the Game Boy Color, but was cancelled.

It would have contained all four characters from the original version, as well as seven maps, a hundred different rooms, and five types of dinosaurs; this game was also canceled.

[6][33][36][37][42] Despite these similarities, reviewers found the game "enhances and alters" the Resident Evil formula with "strength of its own merits".

[46] The PlayStation version of the game ultimately sold 2.4 million copies worldwide, and is listed as Capcom "Platinum Title".

[37][42] GameSpot praised the character models, lighting effects, and found "the use of polygonal backgrounds enhances the feeling of fear even more than Resident Evil".

[36] The Dreamcast and Windows ports received mixed reviews from multiple sources, criticized for adding very little enhancements to take advantage of their superior hardware.

[13][14][38][39] The graphics were viewed as dated on Windows, with IGN calling it "choppy" and pointing out the poor resolution upscaling.

On the Dreamcast, Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, another Capcom survival horror game, was viewed as a superior experience.

[52][53] The protagonist of Dino Crisis, Regina, has been featured as a playable character in the tactical role-playing game Namco x Capcom for the PlayStation 2.