Frontier Developments has long been established as leading the pack in the category of simulation games, and Planet Zoo 2 raises the bar even further for the industry.
Expanding on the original title with a heap of new features, including customizable wildlife reserves to release animals into, alongside the addition of fully aquatic and aviation species to the roster, Planet Zoo 2 gets almost everything right across the board.
My expectations were high, having been blown away in a preview session, and my early assessments of the title have been proved correct. After sinking hours into both the campaign and franchise mode, meticulously creating every habitat, it’s far to say I have a new addiction.
Raising The Bar
Campaign is where the action kicks off, serving as both the tutorial for the game and its many new additions, alongside issuing a wealth of challenges to sink your teeth into, and it’s right from the off that everything is connected.
Unlike the first game, where campaign challenges were independent of one another, it’s all intertwined in Planet Zoo 2, and there are many situations where you’ll have to go elsewhere before continuing your progress. It leads to a whistle-stop tour around the world, testing your mettle at every opportunity.
Here, there are endless hours to sink in as you attempt to achieve the highest rating, Gold, in each scenario, but it’s not always easy. Some will require you to breed animals in another zoo before transferring them over, while others will test you in every situation imaginable, from keeping animals thriving to appeasing guests.
For returning players, it’s the perfect mix of a sense of familiarity combined with new approaches to make things feel genuinely different from the first title, while new players have everything they need to become master craftsmen, which can then be taken into franchise mode.
Franchise is where the majority of players will sink hours into, and while the approach is largely the same as the first title, the biggest adjustment is making your zoos feel more connected than ever. While this was the case in the first game, it mostly meant a shared trade centre and Conservation Credits, alongside research, but things are knocked up a notch this time around.
Progress is the name of the game, and when you start, you’re limited in the animals you can bring in. That means you’ll mostly have to start with smaller, more basic animals to take care of before the doors open up to bringing in the likes of lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!).
Earning your stripes and unlocking these animals requires creating several zoos, and meeting set objectives, alongside restoring wildlife reserves around the world. As a result, finally being able to bring in an elephant or one of the more iconic animals in the roster feels like a huge achievement.
It also means there’s now an even bigger separation from Sandbox mode, where you have unlimited funds and everything already unlocked.
Creativity Unlocked
Of course, one of the biggest appeals of Planet Zoo 2, like any other title from Frontier’s Planet franchise, is creativity, and some of the biggest headaches from the original title have now been erased.
Pathing is undoubtedly the biggest improvement, with an array of tools to help you get everything just right, ensuring you don’t have a frustrating, messy structure that looks ugly, is hard for guests to navigate, and leaves you banging your keyboard in frustration.
The pathing stamp tool is my personal favorite, particularly as it can be used to fill in even the smaller gaps with ease, helping me to bring everything together without much frustration.
Custom habitats are also easier to build than ever, with a snapping feature making custom fences a breeze, and you can toggle this on and off as required.
Filling in the environment is also a breeze with the new brush feature, allowing you to add various fauna and rocks in one swoop, and the terrain brush has been similarly upgraded with a variety of options for the likes of grass, rocks, and soil, meaning it won’t just be a solid color, and instead has subtle differences to make the texture feel more realistic.
The negative is that it will significantly eat into your free time. I spent over an hour and a half building an exhibit for some red deer, and while I’m proud of my creation, it did result in a significant hit to productivity in real-world tasks. But, they’re nowhere near as fun.
The Path Ahead
It wouldn’t be right to review Planet Zoo 2 without addressing some of the concerns among the community regarding the animal roster in the game, and I’ll admit, there are some significant absences, particularly with North American, South American, and Australian animals.
Each of these locations would also be perfect for a wildlife reserve, and I was surprised to see the launch options consisting of two African reserves, where the species available to release are largely the same, a Sumatran reserve, and three European reserves, which again have plenty of crossover when it comes to releasable animals.
This will undoubtedly be resolved in post-launch DLC, and fans likely won’t have to wait too long as the first DLC pack for the original game released 42 days after the official launch, but there needs to be some clarifications on what will be paid-for, and what will come as free upgrades.
Adding wildlife reserves to the mix gives more for DLC to be packed out with, but with a long list of animals from the first game that are yet to return for the sequel, particularly those that were released as paid-for DLC in Planet Zoo.
While there’s been a lot of improvement to the animals in Planet Zoo 2, including their models and interactions, there will undoubtedly be some concern if players are required to splash out for the same animals once again, and the uncertainty of how this will be managed needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
I have to admit, though, the thought of everything that could be added to Planet Zoo 2 in the years ahead fills me with excitement, rather than any sort of frustration, and there’s yet to be any situation in my experience with the game so far where I feel any sense of being short-handed with the roster in the game.
In fact, the staggered approach to unlocking these animals in the franchise has certainly helped things, and, all in all, I barely have any criticisms of the title.
Planet Zoo 2
10
