Is Planet Zoo 2 worth it? Aquariums wow, but wait for one thing

The headline additions are the things fans of the 2019 original asked for most:

• Aquariums. Tanks for sharks, rays, turtles and schools of fish, with walk-through tunnels and coral decorations. Habitats are filtered separately for fresh, brackish or salt water.
• Aviaries. Netted habitats where birds actually fly, from toucans to long-tailed parakeets.
• Wildlife reserves. Big natural areas outside the zoo where you release animals you’ve bred back into the wild.
• Better animals. More than 130 species at launch, with older models like lions and African elephants rebuilt to match newer ones.

There are three ways to play: a Career mode built around scenarios, a free Sandbox, and Franchise mode, which links several zoos and reserves through a shared online economy.

Critics broadly agree on the strengths. A reviewer who had spent more than 1,100 hours in the original called aquariums the best new feature and said the improved tools made decorating far easier. Others singled out the animals, whose modeling, movement and sound make it tempting to stop managing and just watch.

The criticism clusters around a few points:

• Reserves lack depth. The new wildlife reserves are a nice idea, but reviewers found less to do in them than in the zoos themselves.
• Building can be fiddly. One review found habitat tools and menus made simple jobs feel complicated. Another said the terrain paint tool lacks subtlety.
• Familiar gameplay. New animal types widen what you can build, but the core loop of building habitats, meeting needs and keeping the zoo running hasn’t changed much.
• Bugs at launch. Some problems shipped with the game, though they were being patched quickly.

Steam user reviews reflect that split. Around 63% of user reviews were positive a few days after launch, a mixed result for a sequel to a well-loved game.

This is the biggest question mark. A reviewer playing on Xbox Series X found habitat building unnecessarily fiddly, with so many settings and menus that simple jobs took longer than they should. Management sims with this many menus have always been easier with a mouse, and Planet Zoo 2 is no exception.

If you have a choice, PC with a mouse and keyboard is the better way to play. The PS5 version is listed as PS5 Pro Enhanced, and Xbox supports keyboard and mouse on console, which may help. The Xbox version is also Xbox Play Anywhere, so one purchase covers Xbox and PC.

On PC, you can buy it on Steam or the Epic Games Store, and it runs on Windows 10 and 11. Check your storage before buying: an SSD is recommended even for the minimum setup and required for the recommended one. The Steam version uses Denuvo anti-tamper protection. If your computer is too old, Nvidia’s GeForce NOW cloud service has supported the game since day one.

Note that Planet Zoo 2 isn’t included in Game Pass or PS Plus. Xbox’s cloud play and PS5’s cloud streaming on PlayStation Portal both still need you to buy the game. There’s no Switch version and no PS4 or Xbox One version.

The Deluxe Edition costs $15 more and adds the Deluxe Upgrade Pack: six extra species plus exclusive animal signs. The six are the golden eagle, the great hammerhead shark, the axolotl, the golden lion tamarin, the longfin batfish and the blue and gold fusilier.

Everything else, including all modes, the Career, reserves and Franchise, is the same in both editions. So:

• Buy Standard if you’re unsure. You lose nothing important.
• Buy Deluxe if you already know you want hammerheads or axolotls. Upgrading later costs $17.99 on its own, so buying Deluxe at the start works out a few dollars cheaper.

The pre-order bonus pack, a toucan-themed food stall, animal-shaped donation boxes and a tiger photo wall, is now sold separately for $2.99. It’s purely cosmetic.

Frontier moved fast after launch. Its first patch arrived less than 24 hours after release, fixing several crashes, making Franchise mode more stable, repairing FSR and DLSS upscaling, and reducing how often animals get stuck and automatically boxed. It also cut the interest on low-level loans and stopped guests floating above some seats.

But Frontier has also listed problems it’s still working on, which tells you where the rough edges are:

• Animals jumping, climbing and pouncing incorrectly.
• Animals not lining up with their enrichment toys.
• Animals escaping habitats during certain behaviors.
• Player feedback on the core creative tools.

There’s also a money reason to wait on PC. Valve doesn’t let developers discount a new game on Steam for its first 30 days, so the earliest Steam sale price is November 12, 2026. That’s only two weeks away. If you play on PC and aren’t desperate to start, waiting costs you little.