Wow, doesn't Planet Zoo 2 look amazing?
This post won't be an overview of every detail we know about the game so far as there's a lot and many people have done that already but I will use it to share my views.
Before the trailer dropped, I made a list of what I wanted to see in Planet Zoo 2 and, to my pleasant surprise, a lot of it has been confirmed, from birds and fully aquatic animals to innovations like scaling, improved path and terrain tools and an upgraded graphics engine.
Obviously, at this stage, everything is still a work-in-progress and my views below will take that into consideration.
I'll only go over the things I have something interesting to say about so I encourage you to go out there and find out more as there's honestly so much to this very exciting new game! I recommend starting with the announce trailer and the other videos on the Planet Zoo YouTube channel.
Animals
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| Spotted eagle rays |
The roster of the game seems to be influenced by the new Wildlife Reserves mode (more on that later), so instead of the more familiar green sea turtle and reticulated giraffe, we're getting the rarer hawksbill sea turtle and Masai giraffe as they presumably fit better with that gamemode. I'm not sure how happy I am about this as more common zoo species are always a higher priority for me but I can live with it!
All in all, I'm very happy with the starting roster so far and I'm glad we won't need to wait for DLC to get classic animals like penguins and leopards, unlike last time.
All of the animals look great so far and I can't say there's a single one I have major issues with. If the quality of the animals improves over time, like it did with Planet Zoo, then the later animals of this game will be even more remarkable.
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| Signs for the Deluxe Edition animals: golden eagle, golden lion tamarin, axolotl, great hammerhead, blue and gold fusilier and longfin batfish. |
One of the hopes I mentioned in my pre-trailer post was animals having more diverse behaviours and animations and we're getting that thanks to a new "animal brain" system. The animals also animate far more than before, including through more detailed facial animations, which just makes them look even more realistic. They can also interact with the environment a lot more with, for example, herbivores browsing on trees (without damaging them thankfully) and birds perching on branches.
More individuality was another hope of mine and it looks like we're getting some of that through things like stripe variations and baby bumps. I'm hopeful we'll get more model variations and maybe more life stages as well. Interestingly, a behind-the-scenes post also mentions animations being made to suit the animal's "unique personality" — I'm curious how in-depth it is!
Terrestrial
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| Golden lion tamarin |
We've also seen lots of the Sumatran tiger, which is another favourite of mine and one I'm glad to see in Planet Zoo 2. Its model, combined with the new detailed animations, is just mind-blowing for its realism and an indisputable upgrade from the tigers in Planet Zoo. If we get an upgraded Siberian too, I'll be very happy!
Sticking with big cats, the lion has received a much-needed upgrade and it is nothing short of amazing. The Zoopedia labels it a "Lion" rather than a "West African lion" like we had before, which I think is for the better as lion taxonomy can be confusing to say the least (although some social media posts still call it a West African, so who knows?). Either way, a lion is a lion and it's a very beautiful one indeed!
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| Lions |
I'm very happy to see some DLC animals move into base-game, including blue wildebeest, red deer and European bison (no longer called the wisent).
The common hippopotamus isn't as jaw-dropping as I hoped and the red panda looks great in one screenshot but less so in a later video but it's still early days and improvements can be made.
As someone who enjoys European sections in zoos, I'm hyped we're getting the Eurasian brown bear and Eurasian beaver, although if they're taking the slots of North American counterparts, I hope we get other North American species to make up for it, like the American black bear.
Birds
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| Secretary birds in a netted aviary |
The birds are obviously kept in aviaries and the roofing for these is automatically generated based on where you place barriers and support beams. For anyone that has gone through the pain of making netted roofs in Planet Zoo, this is an absolute Godsend!
My burning question is whether there will be a null option for these roofs; having one would allow us to build alternative "aviaries", like tropical houses or solid wood/metal aviaries.
I'd also like to know whether they can be used for terrestrial animals, like big cats and primates.
Aquatics
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| A hawksbill sea turtle surrounded by pennant coralfish |
I'm surprised by the abundance and variety of fish revealed so far. The most jaw-dropping moment for me in the trailer was the tank bustling with a wide variety of species, yet it only shows a fraction of what's coming!
So far, the confirmed species range from the Indo-Pacific classics like the blacktip reef shark and humphead wrasse, to freshwater species like the brown trout and blunthead cichlid. I'm looking forward to seeing more Atlantic and freshwater species, especially those of the North Sea and Amazon, respectively.
We've seen no marine mammals just yet but I hope we see some pinnipeds and manatees soon.
A hot topic in the community is the inclusion of dolphins since there's concerns around their captive welfare in real-life. Frontier hasn't confirmed whether they'll be in the game but they have said they're waiting on research on how best to include them, if possible. I'm glad they're handling this subject with the care it deserves but I do hope they find a way of including them as I feel they'll be missed if not. I understand the argument that the game is used to educate people on animal welfare but the game already includes species that don't fare well in captivity (many arguably less so than dolphins) and you can still educate people on their complex needs whilst still having them in the game.
I'm very happy with the aquatic roster so far (the lack of a green sea turtle notwithstanding); it's far more comprehensive than I ever dreamed it would be!
One thing I do want to see is how small we can go with the aquariums because everything we've seen so far is pretty big. Not being able to build smaller aquariums would put a limit on realism as most aquariums in real-life aren't that big. I'd also like to know if they can be used with habitat animals, so we can have fish in our jaguar pools, for example.
An underwater tunnel was also revealed in a hammerhead shark video and I'm curious how customisable it is; I'd definitely want to make it smaller than in the video.
From what I understand, smaller fish, like the blue and gold fusilier, will operate as a single entity in a shoal, whereas larger fish will be individual animals. I'm okay with this as long as we can customise the size of the shoal and use them in smaller tanks with only a few individuals.
I've always considered birds a higher priority than aquatics but surprisingly, I'm more excited by aquatics than I am birds. I think it's because we've technically had birds already (albeit in a limited capacity), whereas we've never really had fully aquatic habitat animals before.Exhibits
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| An axolotl in an exhibit |
I'm happy to see a return of exhibit animals as they're always part of zoos in real-life. The ones revealed so far are great, although I'm looking forward to seeing some new species. I can't say I've noticed any model improvements over the previous game, but they were always good enough for my needs anyway.
How these animals are contained hasn't been unveiled yet. All we know is that exhibits are returning but in a way that requires them being in their own tab on the user interface as opposed to being lumped under Facilities like before. This suggests they're more elaborate than last time, which is quite exciting as they were too limited before. At the very least, I hope we get smaller sized versions.
Visuals
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| A Sumatran tiger in a lush environment |
Sometimes I feel like the foliage (palms in particular) is a bit too vibrant but I think (and hope) it depends on the lighting.
Other things
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| A wildlife reserve |
The Wildlife Reserves mode where you can build and manage your own ecosystems and conservation projects seems interesting and, if I had more time, I'd definitely consider playing it. The level set in the Scottish Highlands is especially interesting and I hope it opens the door to species like the European wildcat.
I love that staff facilities have been deconstructed for us to build them piece by piece! I can see a lot of use for many of the scenery pieces. Speaking of which, I love how much scenery is returning from the first game. One of my worries was not having access to some of my most used pieces but I doubt that will be much of an issue, especially with scaling.
The upgraded path and terrain tools are also very exciting as they were easily among the most frustrating aspects of Planet Zoo. Being able to make null elevated paths will be so useful for things like custom bridges and being able to alter terrain without removing water first will also save so much time. I saw a screenshot somewhere showing different substrate options which is also very exciting; I never liked how each sandbox map in Planet Zoo had its exclusive substrates that you couldn't use across different maps.
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| A look at the user interface |
So yeah, I'm immensely excited for this game and even though I have questions and concerns here and there, I have no doubt it will be a wholesale upgrade over the first game.
Did I book a full week off work to play it when it releases? Absolutely.
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