Running my dream menagerie in Planet Zoo is always going to feel a little different than the entertainment-focused spectacles of Planet Coaster or fantastical dino parks of Jurassic World Evolution. All of these gorgeous beasts and birds are real species we share the planet with and, in some cases, have put on the endangered list. So I was glad to see that Frontier’s sequel put an even deeper emphasis on conservation as a main goal this time around, even if certain pieces of that – like wildlife reserves – feel a bit less fleshed-out than they could be.
When it comes to the daily tasks of building enclosures, hiring staff, and caring for animals, there isn’t a ton that has changed since the original Planet Zoo. In that way, it feels more like a gentle evolution than a wildly ambitious one. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you played the first game, you should have no trouble getting your bearings in this one. There are a lot more options for adding detail, but building a functional zoo doesn’t require you to learn all of them.
The species list is downright impressive, too, with over 130 creatures of all sizes to display. Some of these are exhibit-based, meaning they live in a smaller terrarium and don’t have all of the same features of the bigger ones. And only around half of the list is eligible to eventually be released into the wild – more on that later. But at no point did the roster ever feel stingy. I even learned about a new species of horse!
The addition of aviaries and aquariums is the first big, shiny, new feature that isn’t purely visual. And the flexibility allowed by this system is impressive. Whereas in the Jurassic World Evolution games, creating habitats for swimmers and flyers was a matter of snapping large, modular pieces together, Planet Zoo 2 gives you a lot of fine control over the shape, look, and in the case of aquariums, even depth of an exhibit.
I was really excited when I realized you can build glass tunnels through an aquarium exhibit. You can even build your entire zoo this way, as long as you stick to species that can share the same watery home without issue. Some species will fight or try to eat each other if placed together, just like in the first Planet Zoo. But there are also aquatic and semi-aquatic creatures who have different needs in terms of water temperature and salinity. If you want freshwater and saltwater exhibits in the same zoo, you even need two different filtration networks, which was an extra level of planning and realism that I enjoyed.
Money On My Mind
That brings me to the major advantage that sets Planet Zoo 2 apart from its coaster- and dino-based sister games: it’s actually a challenging economic simulation. Of course, in the sandbox mode, you can turn off just about anything you don’t want to deal with – from staff happiness to animal aging to the very concept of money. But as someone who very much feels that the difficulty of keeping the lights on is part of the experience, I was thrilled to find that task is not completely trivial.
If you check out my review of Planet Coaster 2, you’ll recall I was deflated by the fact that I could put down one flat ride and a couple vending machines, walk away from my PC, and come back to find I had made essentially unlimited money from my sad little park. I tried a similar experiment in Planet Zoo 2, making one small exhibit with only warthogs to start and gouging my guests as much as possible to make a profit. It didn’t work. And that’s great!
Between six different types of staff members to manage, complex guest and animal needs, and the fact that visitors can be very realistically prickly about ticket prices if they don’t think they’re getting their money’s worth, Planet Zoo 2 has a lot to chew on even before you start moving into the rich breeding and conservation systems. There are still a couple pieces of the management screen that felt a little underbaked. Your Sustainability rating is just based on which types of power generators and wastebins you install, which is a trivial choice with no major downsides that I never really thought about again after achieving five stars before the gates even opened. But the other components of building my zoo’s reputation really gave me something to strive for.
The possibilities for customization have also expanded quite a bit in that nearly all buildings now have fully-modeled interiors that guests and staff can interact with. You can design your perfect break room inside and out, and even tweak the kitchens where the animals’ meals are prepared. This system goes even deeper with new, modular gift shops and restaurants in which functional seating areas and shelf displays can be placed that actually affect dining capacity and items available for purchase.
I’m an absolute amateur at using these powerful tools to their greatest potential. But since the Steam Workshop once again lets me download little decorations or even whole buildings from far more talented and dedicated detailers, I can still benefit from their versatility.
There’s also a campaign that serves mostly as a kind of extended tutorial. It’s fine. I mainly used it as inspiration for what kinds of things I could build with the new tools. The characters still talk kind of like they’re on a BBC children’s program, but they’re a bit less outwardly goofy this time around, which meant I had a bit more patience for them. And there is kind of a plot, even, revolving around exposing the crimes of a major corporation claiming to be environmentally friendly while actually putting fragile ecosystems at risk. It does the job well enough.
Back To Nature
The other substantial new element of Planet Zoo 2 comes in the form of wildlife reserves, which are completely separate maps on which you paint biomes instead of enclosures, then increase their rating by introducing appropriate plants and re-wilding a variety of native species. While it can be a lot of fun to drive around in my little cart and take pictures of my zoo’s former residents back in their natural habitat, the management side of these reserves feels a little shallow.
There are tons of tags for different kinds of animals that can occupy necessary biological niches on your preserves, but establishing and maintaining ecosystems wasn’t always quite so satisfying. Getting rid of invasive plants, for instance, is just a matter of clicking on them with the bulldozer tool. There’s no need to hire rangers or botanists to maintain the land. You’re doing it all with godlike powers. I will say, I do really like the new nature brushes, which can be used to paint a variety of different canopy and understory plants with one tool. You can even make your own!
The water tools don’t hold up to the same standard. There’s a lot of customization in terms of surface texture, color, opacity, and so forth. But every body of water is ultimately still a fixed height, and has to be placed in a trough. It’s not really possible to make something like a convincing river that flows downhill without resorting to some clever special effects that require a lot of tweaking. It made me miss the dynamic waterfalls from Jurassic World Evolution 3.
Still, it’s great to have a physical place I can go visit when an animal’s time at my zoo is done. I can even snap pictures of them to earn Conservation Credits, Planet Zoo 2’s secondary currency that is required to adopt certain higher-tier endangered animals. I also enjoyed being able to invest my zoo’s resources into new conservation projects, which offer a helpful and reliable way to turn money into Conservation Credits if you don’t have any animals currently ready for release.
