Planet Zoo 2's gameplay reveal shows how to manage the new aquariums and aviaries
Overview & Key Takeaways
Land, sea, and air all in one zoo.
When you really stop and think about it, the whole world is one big zoo, right? We're all just animals in our enclosures, going about our daily lives, hoping for some enrichment and waiting for our next meal. So, it was only natural we'd get Planet Zoo 2, a successor to Frontier Development's 2019 management sim. We were due some more enrichment, after all.
A new gameplay trailer for the sequel just debuted at the PC Gaming Show, showing off all manner of adorable critters and the tools you'll be able to use to give them a happy life. The biggest addition is all the fishes—and yes, that is grammatically correct; fishes is the plural for multiple species of fish. There are also aviaries that can house flying birds. We're nurturing land, sea, and air in this game.
You can build both saltwater and freshwater aquariums to house turtles, pufferfish, and those weird massive fish that look like they're sideways all the time—ocean sunfish they're called, and they freak me out. We see some happy divers going in to clean up the tanks and keep the fish in good health, and the guests all look delighted watching the marine animals swimming about.
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The aviaries also look spectacular. You can build tall, wide, netted areas for your white-tailed sea eagles and other flying birds. You can give them jangly toys to play with and eventually even release them into wild nature reserves. It's a lovely feature that highlights some of the great conservation work zoos do, rather than purely focusing the game on the entertainment value of the animals.
Planet Zoo 2 makes caring for the animals as clear and easy as possible, showing bars that fill up as you meet the needs of the wildlife. Each species has different needs, so making enclosures that can keep them all happy is where the challenge comes in. And making everything look pretty rather than purely functional, I've always been bad at that myself.
Planet Zoo 2 launches October 13, 2026, and you can head over to Steam to pre-order it now. I can't wait to go and rescue some beavers—my partner loves the way they pause and listen to the trees they're felling to make sure they have time to scurry away.
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