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Planet Zoo News

Planet Zoo is OUT NOW 🦁🦓🦒

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It feels like forever ago, but it's only been seven months since we originally announced Planet Zoo; we'd been working on the game for over two years, and at that point we finally got to share what we had in store for you.


Today, on 5 November 2019, Planet Zoo is live!


Planet Zoo is an absolute passion project for us as a studio; many of us at Frontier have grown up playing similar titles, taking care of our zoos and our animals (or you know, occasionally releasing them to chase out the guests!), so for us to have the chance to bring Planet Zoo to a whole new generation was very special.

Planet Zoo is all about running a successful zoo, in whichever way you prefer to play. In Career Mode, you are joining a cast of original characters on a journey around the world facing different challenges depending on where your zoo is located. We've taken great care to bring you a fun, engaging, and original story filled with adventure and progressively harder objectives. We've also got Franchise Mode, which is aimed at those who are keen to work together and trade animals with a global network of other players, and run multiple zoos. Franchise Mode also contains weekly Community Challenges, which are exciting objectives that run from Tuesdays to Sundays and result in an exciting new outfit for your avatar if successful! If you prefer to keep the challenge to yourself and your own zoo, we've got Challenge Mode for you - here you'll find specific Zoo Challenges on a limited budget. And finally, of course we have Sandbox Mode for all those who want to build and create without any limitations! Let your imagination truly run wild...

Animal welfare is at the heart of Planet Zoo. You are tasked with creating the perfect habitats, monitoring your animal's individual needs, and ensuring you have enough Zookeepers, Veterinarians, and other Staff to take care of all of your zoo's inhabitants. We've created the Zoopedia, an in-game hub which hosts all the information on every animal species in your zoo. You can find their preferred surroundings, foliage and temperature, their conservation status, and even which other species they could co-exist with!

A successful zoo is not just about happy and healthy animals - you also want to take care of your guests so that they give your zoo a high rating! Place Shops and other guest facilities to make sure they have spaces to eat and rest, have enough benches and bins, and hide away your Staff facility buildings from sight. Guests will want to see the animals too, so find the balance between a good view and an animal's privacy - and don't forget to place Education signs so guests can learn about the animals, as well as Donation Boxes which contribute to your cash flow and animal conservation!

And if you're simply into building the most amazing structures and habitats, we've got the Steam Workshop all set up for you. There's lots of building and scenery pieces for you to use, so anything from custom entrances to climbing structures can be shared with the entire community. We've even made it possible to add terrain to Habitat blueprints, so you can create the perfect habitat and upload it straight to the Workshop. We cannot wait to see what you're going to create!

Of course there's so much more to Planet Zoo, and we're really excited you can now finally play the full game and explore everything yourself. We will be here every step of the way with weekly livestreams, Community Challenges, developer interviews, and more! We'd like to encourage you to keep using the official forums and social channels for your feedback - we're reading everything. Let us know what you discover, which animals steal your heart (they will!), and share your creations with us.

Thank you so much for your ongoing support, your passion and enthusiasm about the game, and all of your helpful feedback and comments. Now go and create the zoo of your dreams!

❤️
The Planet Zoo team.

Planet Zoo - Launch Update Notes

Planet Zoo - Launch Update Notes

There have been many updates and bug fixes to Planet Zoo since our Beta; here are some of the more noteworthy things we'd like to call out before you jump into the game!

General
  • When launching the game after clicking PLAY in Steam, you may encounter a delay where you see a white screen prior to the game appearing.
  • If you have an existing Scenario 1 save from the Beta, please delete your save for the best play experience.
  • Blueprints from the Beta should be available on the Steam Workshop. Some asset pivot points may have changed, which means your blueprint might require moving and resaving.
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Animals
  • Further balancing to breeding rates.
  • Average animal longevity has been raised.
  • Improvements to animal boxing and unboxing.
  • Further social interaction animations added.
  • Big cats now have retractable claws (except for the Cheetah, as they are not supposed to have retractable claws).


Staff
  • Keepers will work out how much food they need to prepare for a habitat based on how many animals are in the habitat. They will then prioritise filling enrichment feeders before standard feeders. This can mean that if all of the prepared food is placed in enrichment feeders, the standard feeders won't be filled!
  • There have been many improvements to keeper feeding behaviour. Keepers can become tired and won't perform their duties if they are not rested, so make sure you let them have some time off at a Staff Centre now and again.
  • Mechanics should now fix broken facilities more reliably.


Franchise Mode & Frontend
  • The Animal Exchange can now be filtered.
  • Improved notifications when players are unable to purchase animals from the Animal Market.

Research
  • Vets now stop researching once they reach advanced research and must be manually re-assigned.
  • Mechanics will now perform continuous research until they complete the category they are assigned to.


Help, UI & Notifications
  • Planet Zoo has extensive help files; these are a great way to learn how to run your zoo smoothly.
  • Additional notifications including animal pregnancy/birth.
  • Improved setting ticket prices

Planet Zoo - Global Launch Times

Hello Zookeepers!

We can't wait to share Planet Zoo with you in just a few days! On 5 November we are launching globally and you will finally be able to play through the entire story in Career Mode, develop your global zoo network in Franchise Mode, test your zoo management skills with Challenge Mode, and unleash your limitless creativity in Sandbox Mode!

You're probably as excited as we are, and we know many of you have been asking what time the game will go live. Today we're happy to share the global Planet Zoo release times with you, so you know exactly when you can start playing:

  • Los Angeles 4:00 AM PST
  • Calgary 5:00 AM MST
  • Chicago 6:00 AM CST
  • Mexico City 6:00 AM CST
  • New York 7:00 AM EST
  • Toronto 7:00 AM EST
  • Rio de Janeiro 9:00 AM BRT
  • London 12:00 PM GMT
  • Paris 1:00 PM CET
  • Athens 2:00 PM EET
  • Cape Town 2:00 PM SAST
  • Moscow 3:00 PM MSK
  • Istanbul 3:00 PM TRT
  • Dubai 4:00 PM GST
  • New Dehli 5:30 PM IST
  • Bangkok 7:00 PM ICT
  • Beijing 8:00 PM CST
  • Seoul 9:00 PM KST
  • Tokyo 9:00 PM JST
  • Brisbane 10:00 PM AEST
  • Sydney 11:00 PM AEDT
  • Auckland 1:00 AM NZDT (Wednesday 6 November)


*Please note release is global and pre-loading is not possible.


We've also got an update on Beta saved games progress as well as your Steam Workshop items. As mentioned in the Beta Information post, we previously weren't sure that your saved games would function on launch day. We're now happy to report that your Career Mode - Scenario 1 save file will still be valid, however for the best play experience we do recommend starting over again – whilst we have tested many different saves we cannot 100% guarantee all save files will work. Franchise Mode save files will no longer function, so you are free to start over your new Franchise!

In terms of the Planet Zoo Steam Workshop blueprints that were uploaded during the Beta, they will stay on the Steam Workshop and should all work in-game. Beta blueprints are marked with a "Beta" tag on the Workshop. If your blueprint doesn’t function in game, it may be because some of the assets have been updated and might need re-positioning.

Lastly, for those who have played the Beta, you will automatically be credited 500 Conservation Credits to your account as a thank you for pre-ordering the Deluxe Edition and providing us with such amazing feedback.

As per our recently posted November Streaming Schedule, we will be counting down to launch from 10:30 AM GMT in our official Launch Livestream - be sure to tune in for some chats with the developers and awesome prizes!

See you soon!



Planet Zoo Beta - Now Closed! 🐻

Hello Zookeepers!

The Planet Zoo Beta has now come to a close and what an experience it has been! The creativity you have shown in your animal habitats and zoo layouts has been an absolute joy to witness!

You've have all been incredible with the feedback and reports you have shared with us and thanks to your efforts we were able to introduce three updates (and one update of an update) to help resolve some of the most important issues raised during the Beta. We will continue using your feedback in the next few weeks ahead of launch to make sure that Planet Zoo on 5 November is the best it can possibly be! Of course, we'll continue the hard work even after launch as well.

Over the next few weeks we'll do our best to keep you posted about all things Planet Zoo; there's still stuff to talk about and we want to keep hearing from you! You are still welcome to share any feedback you have remaining here and include any suggestions or wishlist items you might have here.

Also, do make sure to tune in every Friday on our Facebook channel for our Facebook Friday sessions and say hello in the chat.

Thank you again for an amazingly informative and fun two weeks! We can't wait to see the amazing zoos you create this November!

Planet Zoo - Beta Update 1.3.1

Hello Zookeepers!

Thank you for the reports you've sent in since our latest update. We've now released Update 1.3.1 which should resolve some crashes and other issues you have highlighted to us.

Fixes
  • Fix for juveniles not growing into adults;
  • Further crash fixes.

Please be sure to report any other issues to us via our Issue Tracker so we can investigate them right away!