Terrible Lizards Brings 90s Dino Horror and First-Person Parkour to PS5 on Oct 29

WDR Studios has detailed its upcoming first-person action-horror platformer, Terrible Lizards, ahead of its launch on PlayStation 5 on October 29. Set in a twisted 1990s roadside attraction along Route 66, the title turns nostalgic dinosaur tropes into a high-momentum parkour escape.

According to Studio Director and Game Director John W. Gelardi, the project aims to balance frantic movement with genuine prehistoric dread. "When I founded WDR Studios with my colleagues, the goal was simple: make the kind of games that we’d want to play," Gelardi said in a post on the official PlayStation Blog.

The game puts players in the shoes of a college student on a 1990s Route 66 road trip whose car breaks down near Dalton’s Dinos, a tourist trap packed with sketchy fossils and goofy prehistoric statues. What starts as a search for help quickly devolves into a desperate run for survival as those familiar dinosaur icons reveal a much darker nature.

The details

• Release Date: October 29, 2026 on PlayStation 5
• Developer: WDR Studios
• Genre: First-person 3D action-horror parkour platformer
• Setting: Dalton's Dinos, a corrupted 1990s Route 66 roadside attraction
• Key Mechanics: Fixed max-speed movement, wall running, sliding, ledge jumps, aerial control, and level-manipulation tools

How Dalton's Dinos twists the platformer

Movement in Terrible Lizards draws inspiration from popular first-person action shooters rather than traditional platformers, building a movement system centered on a predictable, rhythmic flow state. Players automatically move at a fixed maximum speed, allowing forward momentum to carry through jumps, slides, wall runs, and ledge leaps.

The system includes aerial control so players can adjust their jumps mid-air or physically lean into turns to dodge hazards. Levels also incorporate interactive tools that let players manipulate the environment while running to stay ahead of hunting dinosaurs, balancing tight precision controls with high-stakes mascot horror.

The team behind the teeth

WDR Studios is composed of first-time game developers, many transitioning into game design from online creator backgrounds. Gelardi noted that his experience managing a YouTube channel helped shape the studio's focus on intuitive movement and player-first gameplay mechanics.

By drawing on early-1990s cultural dinomania and the classic American roadside attraction aesthetic—taking the literal Greek roots of deinos and saurus ("terrible lizard")—the studio set out to subvert familiar childhood fascination into something eerie and frantic.

Why it matters

Terrible Lizards enters a popular indie mascot horror landscape, but distinguishes itself by swapping slow stealth for high-velocity FPS movement. Combining tight platforming mechanics with 1990s prehistoric nostalgia gives WDR Studios a distinct foundation for its debut release.