Planet Zoo’s conservation pack is finally here, bringing along brand new animals and tons of building pieces. Everything is themed around animal conservation and environmental wellbeing, making it perhaps one of the more important DLCs to release for the game.
As we have mentioned before, the game does not shy away from teaching players about the importance of good animal care, and their current situations and habitats around the world. The new pack continues this trend, this time giving us insight into 5 new endangered species including the Przewalski’s Horse, Amur Leopard, Siamang, Scimitar-Horned Oryx, and the Axolotl Exhibit animal.
This time, even the guests can learn about the animals via the newly added Educational Stations, something that adds a much needed interactivity for the parkgoers courtesy of the 1.10 update. This adds items such as Height Measuring station and Pawprint station which the kids can interact with. These additions help make the guests more believable in my opinion.
Whilst of course this is more of a paid DLC impression, its definitely worth noting just how great the 1.10 update editions are to the overall experience, adding new animal and guests behaviour that really enrich the overall experience.
Whilst all animals feature good attention to detail like most, my favourite edition is probably the Axolotol. I genuinely do hope we get more smaller creatures in the future, especially those used as exhibit animals. I feel like there is still a lot to be done with more indoor spaces, and these additions can help a lot. Not to mention, they bring a variety to the animals present in-game, letting you theme out your park even further.
On the other hand, the Siamang easily stands out due to its unique behaviours and detailed animation that mimick the real-life counterpart pretty well. The Przewalski Horse is especially noteworthy in regards to animations, as it is packed with a lot of interesting behaviours and details.
Planet Zoo tends to cater to various types of sandbox players, from those that love building to those that just enjoy taking care of animals and learning more about them. I would actually say that this pack is more likely to be enjoyed by the builders as it features a ton of new building items.
There are at least 150+ scenery pieces alone in this content pack, ranging from meadow items to sunflowers, and even a Korean pine. These definitely add further variety to the game, and allow for unique theming and decoration of the park. However, what I was really happy to see are actually smaller props like garden forks, water hoses, and wheelbarrows.
These smaller pieces are great to add extra touches to certain environments, allowing you to build a more authentic zoo that feels lived-in and busy. This will really cater to more hardcore builders who like adding extra detail and polish to their scenes.
There is a new timed scenario present as well, where you are tasked with rescuing animals and improving their living welfare. The mode encourages the use of renewable and eco-friendly items which serves as a good tutorial for what is present in this pack. It really emphasises just how climate change and poaching is affecting these animals, and what we can do to counteract that.
Overall I don’t have many negative things to say about this pack, but as this includes a lot more building variety than animals, it might not specifically cater to those who prefer the wildlife over hardcore building. There isn’t really anything wrong with that, as the game definitely should cater to its different demographics.
Because of this, I can easily recommend this to the builders as it includes a lot of building content, especially brand new foilage that a lot of fans were asking for. In fact, it’s probably worth getting it for the animals as well, especially since the Siamang, and the Przewalski Horse have a lot of detail to them, and the Axolotol adds further variety to exhibit animals.
It is now available for £7.99 / $9.99 / €9.99 on Steam for PC. It requires the base game in order to be used, which is heavily discounted on steam as part of their Summer Sale.
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