Planet Zoo 2 - News and what we'd love to see

With how popular it’s been since its release, many fans have been wondering when a Planet Zoo 2 release date will be announced. Planet Zoo is a resource management and zoo-building simulation game. It’s seen as the spiritual successor to the popular early 2000s Zoo Tycoon games. As is the case with many Frontier games, Planet Zoo is currently being supported by a large number of DLC packs. These offer new content for the games long after they’ve been released.

A Planet Zoo 2 sequel would let the developers at Frontier rework some aspects of the game that have long annoyed fans. These are core elements of the gameplay, such as guest reactions to seeing staff buildings and pathing options.

For more sandbox-style gaming content, make sure to check out our review of the new release of Dwarf Fortress on Steam. We also have a look at the latest Planet Coaster 2 news, as well as some Bloodborne 2 speculation.

Planet Zoo 2 latest news

There is currently no news on Planet Zoo 2. It is unlikely that we will even see a Planet Zoo 2 in development. Frontier like to support its games with DLC packs that are released even many years after the release of the initial game, rather than opting for proper sequels. For now though, we can look forward to seeing these features implemented into the game.

Things we'd like to see in Planet Zoo 2

Credit: Steam

Better optimisation for larger zoos

Anybody who has tried to make a relatively large zoo in Planet Zoo will tell you that the game starts to tank pretty hard after a certain point. The game is not built for zoos with a lot of animals in it. It is currently impossible to make a zoo with all of the base game animals at once. The frames will drop down to 2 FPS while the zoo is running, and this does not make for a sustainable way to play.

This is a shame, as many fans would love the opportunity to make a zoo with all of their favourite animals at once. Instead, it’s recommended to have a few smaller zoos that cater towards ten to fifteen species maximum.

It would be great to see better optimisation in Planet Zoo 2. This would let fans build the huge zoo of their dreams, untethered by the number of objects placed or animals bought.

Credit: Steam

Ambient animals

When you go to a zoo in real life, you’ll notice that there will be a number of animals that aren’t in enclosures. They are allowed to roam around the zoo freely or live in the various ponds and lakes in other animal exhibits. Most often these will be animals like peacocks, or less exotic animals like ducks.

These all contribute to the wild atmosphere of a zoo. They provide guest enjoyment, especially when they get up close with animals like peacocks and guinea fowl. Currently, you cannot allow animals to roam freely in Planet Zoo. While the guests can enter the peacock exhibit, it’s not the same as being able to let the animals wander the site on their own.

The addition of ambient animals in Planet Zoo 2 would make for a much more natural zoo feel. There could be large koi ponds that guests can pay to feed, or additional feeding points around the zoo for the few wandering animals.

Credit: Steam

Rework the guests

The guests in Planet Zoo are the bane of players. They have weird, obscure negative thoughts that can be difficult to remedy. For example, they have a severe penalty if they can see any of the staff buildings. This is unrealistic, as many zoos in real life incorporate these buildings into the experience. They will often allow guests to watch them prepare food or care for animals in the nurseries.

While it’s understandable that Frontier added the penalty to balance the zoo-building experience, it is frustrating when there’s only a limited amount of room to build in. This could be remedied with a more expensive food preparation area, but one that guests enjoy watching the keepers in.

Another aspect of the guests that need reworking is their pathing. Almost all of the guests will congregate on the same paths through the zoo, no matter how many others there are. Players have despaired as they make shorter paths with more facilities along them, only for the guests to all bottleneck along a different one.

Planet Zoo 2 could introduce a couple of systems to help with this. One of them would be the introduction of one-way paths. This would directly alter some of the traffic around the zoo, and ensure that some of the paths don’t get too congested.

Credit: Steam

Conservation mode

Planet Zoo does a great job of highlighting just how important conservation work is. They reward the player with points if they release healthy animals back into the wild. There are even more points awarded if the animal is at risk.

Planet Zoo 2 could take this idea and expand upon it further. While some players enjoy balancing the guest experience against the animals, not everyone wants to cater towards people when building a zoo. The introduction of a conservation mode would focus entirely on rescuing and caring for animals. The money could come from a few different areas, such as a limited income based on the zoo being a charity, or rewards from breeding programs.

The conservation mode could also be based on scenarios, such as the ones seen in the Zoo Tycoon games. These would be random events that would pop up, such as ‘Adopt a Lion’ or ‘Release five Gorillas’. It keeps the game fresh and reflects the real-world supply and demand of conservation facilities.

Aviaries and aquariums

Fans of the original Zoo Tycoon games will remember the highly successful expansion packs, Marine Mania and Dino Digs. These let players build extravagant aquarium tanks in the zoos, that could be built upwards to allow the guests to view up at the animals, rather than just down. Dino Digs also introduced dinosaurs into the zoos, where you could hatch and care for all kinds of prehistoric creatures.

It’s unlikely that Planet Zoo will see a dinosaur pack, because Frontier also develops the Jurassic Park games. This would create too much of an overlap and might hurt sales. However, that doesn’t apply to aquariums or something similar.

Fans have been calling for aquarium mechanics since the release of the game. They want to be able to build tall, glass exhibits and fill them with fish and similar animals for their zoo. A similar mechanic could be implemented with aviaries. You could build netted enclosures that allow for winged animals to be included too.

That's it for our hub on the release of Planet Zoo 2! For more hubs like this, check out everything we know about Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League, as well as Dead Island 2.