Planet Zoo: Only game your kids should be playing
In a sea of first person shooters, one title stands alone in its ability to not just entertain your child, but make them a better person too.
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From the dawn of the Digital Age, gamers have been exploring, exploiting, and exterminating their way through countless different worlds and eras.
In an industry where entertainment comes all too often in the form of bloody big guns and even bloodier explosions, Planet Zoo is a breath of fresh air that rewards kindness over body count, while secretly providing players of all ages with an educational experience along the way.
Welcome, my friends, to the world of Planet Zoo. From the creators of Zoo Tycoon, Planet Coaster, and Jurassic World Evolution comes an immersive zoo management game featuring over 75 species of animals, each with unique appearances and personalities.
As a zoologist by training and passionate wildlife conservationist, I was intrigued; albeit somewhat sceptical, about the depth of animal realism Planet Zoo would bring.
But over the course of 80 hours of gameplay, I found myself enthralled by the level of detail and creative freedom, and deeply impressed with the game’s core values.
Planet Zoo brings an incredible world to your fingertips, and unveils a force for wildlife conservation through the promotion of animal care and protection, scientific research, and environmental education.
And graphically, it’s all so damn lifelike. I found myself utterly entranced by Planet Zoo’s attention to detail: the weathered trunk of a looming Kapok tree; the beads of water like jewels on the skin of a gharial; the breath steaming from a rhinoceros’ nostrils; the sky at sunset red as flame. Planet Zoo engages the senses in such a way that allows your imagination to truly run wild.
But managing such an elaborate world isn’t quite as easy. From animal behaviour to disease management, everything within Planet Zoo exists in a delicate balance. As King (or Queen) of your very own jungle, your job is to understand that balance and learn to care for all your resident creatures.
Anyone who’s ever owned a pet will know they’re thinking, feeling individuals with likes, dislikes, quirks, and a ridiculous level of cuteness all of their own.
Just like in life, every animal in Planet Zoo is a unique individual that responds intuitively to the world around them.
This is the true purpose of the in-game level of detail. It’s not simply there to impress you, but to show the ways in which animals would realistically respond to their environment and interact with others.
To portray these behaviours as accurately as possible, the team at Frontier say they consulted with zoologists, zookeepers and veterinarians, and analysed video footage of both wild and captive animals. Having studied animal psychology extensively, I was pleasantly surprised with Planet Zoo’s attention to behavioural nuance.
Chimpanzees can be seen engaging in social grooming, and wolves will howl to communicate with other pack members. There is also a certain unpredictability that displays each animal’s unique personality. For example, species such as African wild dogs have a notion of alphas that structure group social dynamics. In these instances, it will often be bolder, more confident individuals who rise to the top of the pack. Each animal is guided by its own sophisticated AI, which is determined by its genes and life history.
In this sense, players will not only gain insight into species-specific behaviours, but will be able to get to know their animals on a personal level.
This serves to create a unique player-AI bond. Frontier doesn’t want you to view these animals as expendable exhibits, but as thinking, feeling individuals that you genuinely want to care for. This reinforces animal welfare as a top priority in Planet Zoo.
Maintaining happy and healthy animals takes a lot of work, but you do have some help. The in-game Zoopedia provides a database of information on each species. However, you can get to know your animals even better by assigning veterinarians to research them. This provides improvements to food quality, enrichment items, breeding programs, education, and disease treatment. Essentially, the more you learn in Planet Zoo, the better. Animals with low welfare can become unwell and die, while animals with higher welfare live longer, are less prone to illness, attract more guests, and generate more donations.
Another bonus of maintaining happy animals is that they are more likely to breed, which means you get to look after the most adorable baby animals EVER.
My experience working for one of the world’s largest and most awarded zoos taught me that breeding is one of the most vital and complex aspects of zoo management. This notion is reflected in Planet Zoo, with genetic diversity an important consideration. Inbreeding, for example, produces animals with a reduced lifespan, fertility and immunity. Introducing new individuals as well as strategically using contraceptives will help you maintain healthy, adaptable populations with high genetic diversity.
It’s not all animal management, though. For your inner-tradie, designing your zoo can be just as rewarding as caring for your animals, and just as complicated.
Each species requires shelter and enrichment items to stimulate their natural behaviours, as well as varying types of terrain and foliage befitting their natural biome. Some, for instance, will want a forest of tall pines and crawling bracken, while others might prefer a field of flowering sedges and a watering hole.
I loved designing small creeks and winding rivers for my animals, and particularly enjoyed watching my favourite sable antelope, Khalfani, drink from his river. He would bend his long, graceful neck and sip at the pale water, ears flicking. The stream ran gently down a steep hillside, where it formed a shallow pool in which my warthog, Pumbaa (yes, you can name them manually if you so choose), would often wade peacefully.
After so much time and effort making your menagerie feel at home, it can be tempting to sit back and watch the endless circle of life take course (cue The Lion King soundtrack). But some of your animals can (and should) be released to the wild in order to increase numbers in their natural habitats. This will generate conservation credits (one of the game’s forms of currency) and improve your zoo’s reputation. The reputation of your park is vital in attracting guests, and is determined by a myriad of factors, not the least of which is education.
In my opinion, the biggest contributions to conservation are made through education, as it drives awareness and fosters a sense of appreciation for the natural world. This notion is mirrored in Planet Zoo. Guests enter the park eager to learn the unique story of each species. By absorbing information from player-placed conservation boards, speakers and audio guides, their education and happiness meters will increase, along with the education level of your zoo as a whole.
Planet Zoo is an enthralling and visually stunning game that allows for near-limitless creativity. My early passion for wildlife was fuelled by films like Jurassic Park and Free Willy (yes, I was born in the 90s), and I have every hope that Planet Zoo may inspire the next generation of zoologists, veterinarians, and animal welfare advocates. In an industry where so much content is catered towards first person shooters, Planet Zoo stands out as a game that supports and rewards humanity. And in a world faced by the dawn of accelerating climate change and mass extinctions, I think that’s exciting.
Kayla Chauvel is a zoologist by training and freelance writer.
Originally published as Planet Zoo: Only game your kids should be playing