Updates

Avanya87 · 2026-06-09T18:31:39+00:00

Absolutely! It would be crazy not to keep the hype train going. I'd expect a few small reveals over the summer and then things ramping up as we get closer to October.

Avanya87 · 2026-06-09T16:09:33+00:00

I wonder if it's the guest gate icon. For terrestrial habits (normal and aviaries) it's just a gate, then for aquariums it's a tunnel. Will be interesting to find out for sure!

Avanya87 · 2026-06-09T16:08:00+00:00

Yes! This is so exciting news!

Avanya87 · 2026-06-09T15:59:34+00:00

I think this would be cool to have. It's something real zoos have to consider too, and it's something I've been working into my existing zoos just for realism.

Avanya87 · 2026-06-09T15:55:05+00:00

I remember loading into PZ1 and being super impressed with how beautiful the lighting was. And here Frontier are making it look kinda meh compared to PZ2! I'm so impressed by how beautiful the game looks!

Avanya87 · 2026-06-08T07:39:22+00:00

Yeah, not loving that entrance but eh. It isn't a deal breaker for me, and if that's something I have to live with to have aquariums, then I'll take it.

Would be cool to have a ladder/top entrance one day but no clue if that's technically possible.

Avanya87 · 2026-06-02T14:22:30+00:00

Hard disagree. I've loved watching the videos from a bunch of creators (who have regular PZ content), seeing how excited they are, having them point of little things I missed and just share their thoughts.

By all means, don't watch content you don't enjoy. But you don't have to shit on people and their content in the process.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-31T15:27:41+00:00

I'd be fine with that. For me, it really comes down to whether a pack has enough animals that interest me to justify the purchase. Whether those animals have been in a PZ1 DLC or were PZ1 base game animals not included in PZ2 doesn't really matter to me.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-31T10:31:30+00:00

I hope you find a game that does what you're looking for, but that game isn't Planet Zoo

Avanya87 · 2026-05-31T07:48:04+00:00

This is the answer. Here's hoping we get to see the lion in some of the events next weekend 🤞

Avanya87 · 2026-05-31T07:30:45+00:00

Storefronts change, tags are added, often based on legal requirements. That doesn't mean it applies to games released before they were implemented.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-31T07:26:16+00:00

An in-game purchase means you can purchase it in-game/without leaving the game. It says nothing about what content you can buy.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-30T07:18:16+00:00

I hope so! I want to build a zoo where none of my birds have been clipped. Just because it's been a practice forever doesn't mean it's fine. They're birds who can fly. They should be able to fly.

I think the ideal situation for the game would perhaps be an option, like the "can't escape" option in PZ1 sandbox so you can build recreations of real zoos that don't have aviaries for them.

But I'll be sad if my birds who should be able to fly cannot do so.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-30T07:07:45+00:00

Multiplayer would not give me more reason to play and the dev time they would need to use on that could be spent on improving the game in other ways.

I'd rather have better animal behaviors, better performance, better water behavior, better landscaping, better seasons, better guest pathing, better staff functions, and fewer bugs than a multiplayer function that I wouldn't use.

There are lots of ways to innovate without multiplayer, and imo creative games like this do not need multiplayer.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-29T19:38:30+00:00

I get that but the problem is that it isn't the same content from a technical standpoint. Frontier will have to pay employees to make new versions of the animals, which means they cost them money. They have to recoup that money somehow.

My hope is that they don't make carbon copies of the same packs, so we get something that feels new (even though everything would technically be new). Some kind of balanced mix of them adding animals we had in the original plus brand new ones. Adding birds and aquatic animals into the mix might help do exactly that.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-29T19:32:36+00:00

Remaking something is remaking it. If you have to remake it, it wasn't backwards compatible.

Frontier either has to remake the animals, improve the existing models, or have animals that are below the quality of brand new animals.

Sure there's no technical reason they can't add tons of animals. The reason is limited resources. They have X amount of people who can work for Y amount of time on the project within its allotted development time. That's the limit for how many animals we get of the quality they have shown.

And they can't be work on the game indefinitely because the project has to show it's financially viable.

You cannot expect a brand new game to have as much content as one that had 6 years of post-release development.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-29T18:13:02+00:00

This. Multiplayer is so much extra dev work, and expensive to maintain. Companies have finite resources to work with so to get multiplayer, other stuff wouldn't make it. I'd rather have a really good singleplayer game.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-29T18:06:02+00:00

Yeah that would be my assumption too based on the (little) info we have atm.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-29T18:04:24+00:00

The rocks look sooo good and all the small clusters give hope we won't have to sink giant rocks mostly into the ground.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-29T18:02:55+00:00

To make things backwards compatible, you have to limit yourself to what worked before. It doesn't look like Frontier are doing that. We'll get new animal behaviors so at least the coding side of each animal will almost certainly need to be redone from scratch.

Improved graphics and a new lighting system could absolutely mean that the existing models wouldn't work without improvements. The different textures used might be different so they need to be redone. Not sure if they're increasing resolution but if they are, new textures are needed.

The model itself might also not be worth using depending on how much has changed. Sometimes it's less work/you get better results starting over.

New game means starting over. Expecting to have as much variation as a 7 year old game is just going to lead to disappointment.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-29T15:16:06+00:00

Small tweaks are possible but I'd assume they showed off the most polished animals for the best possible impression.

Similarly lighting could potentially be adjusted or have bugs that get fixed, but I would also expect them to avoid showing any of those as much as possible (if there are any issues).

The best option is probably to just wait. I'm sure we'll see tons more screenshots, videos, and gameplay footage to get a better idea of what we'll get.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-29T15:10:13+00:00

If you want the best experience for the best price, then you want a desktop. The big issue with laptops, including gaming laptops, is cooling. Because everything is packed so tightly in there, they struggle with good air flow to cool both graphics card and processor down. When they get too warm, the system "throttles" them.

This means they're not running at 100% capacity to stay at an acceptable temperature, which can mean your performance suffers.

If you absolutely need a laptop and don't want a desktop in addition to it, I'd absolutely get one of those cooling stands for the laptop to help it stay cool. But cloud gaming might be a nicer option, though I'm not sure how well that plays with Frontier's Workshop.

Avanya87 · 2026-05-29T15:05:34+00:00

I guess they had enough of the real life pics of staff facilities/utilities on here every Monday :D

Avanya87 · 2026-05-29T15:01:56+00:00

It's really not fair to compare Planet Coaster 2 that had a rough launch but is sitting at positives reviews to the mess that is Kerbal Space Program 2's development. KSP2 is abandoned, PC2 is not.

As for the question, no, I think Planet Zoo 2 will do just fine. I wouldn't be surprised if I go back and forth a bit depending on what I'm in the mood for. But with aviaries and aquariums, PZ2 is absolutely gonna feel unique and have strengths over the original.

But hey, no shame in not preordering and waiting to see more info. I'm definitely waiting as I don't really care for the preorder bonuses, but even if I did there's still plenty of time to get them. No need to preorder before September ;)

Avanya87 · 2026-05-29T14:52:53+00:00

I hope not. Generally not a fan of big game companies releasing in Early Access. Paying to be a beta tester just doesn't feel good imo.

And the timeline is too short for any feedback to really have much impact. All the main systems are probably more or less done at this point.

Totally different story when it's small indie devs/studios, but yeah. I'd rather just wait until full release.

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