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Planet Zoo 2 builds on the original's zoo management formula with new aquatic and flying animals, alongside a range of new systems designed to make animal care and zoo construction more flexible. Previous showcases have covered the sequel's new emotion system and expanded conservation features, while the latest hands-on look from Frontier Developments focuses on the tools players will use to build and customise their zoos.
The more than hour-long showcase highlights several major improvements to construction, including reworked pathing, more flexible building pieces, live water editing and dedicated systems for the game's new aviaries and aquariums.
Pre-orders for Planet Zoo 2 are open now ahead of its October release.
Reworked pathing and building system
Pathing has been one of Planet Zoo's more frustrating systems, but Planet Zoo 2 looks set to give players considerably more control over how their zoos are laid out. The new path builder supports much finer increments, while the line builder can create raised and stepped walkways. The reworked pathing tools should make it much easier to create more natural-looking paths, plazas and multi-level guest areas.
Shop placement has also been made more flexible. Rather than having to connect shops directly to the edge of a path, players can now place shop shells anywhere on a plaza and have guests navigate to them correctly. Individual shops can then be added inside the shell, with the showcase revealing several food, drink and retail brands, including Chief Leaf and the pre-order-exclusive Toucan Eat shop.
More freedom when building staff facilities
Staff facilities are no longer required to be tucked away from guest areas, removing one of the restrictions that could make zoo layouts awkward in the original game.
The building system itself has also been expanded. Players can start with an empty building shell, remove walls, freely scale individual pieces and recolour them to better fit their designs. Building components carried over from the original Planet Zoo also benefit from these new options, giving players considerably more freedom to create custom buildings.
Live water editing and Planet Zoo 2's aviaries and aquariums
One of the bigger quality-of-life additions the video showcased is live water editing, letting players reshape or resize water directly within a habitat without having to drain it and rebuild the surrounding terrain first, which should make a lot of Planet Zoo veterans very, very happy.
Two of Planet Zoo 2's headline new features are also shown: a fully custom aviary is built for a pair of shoebills using the barrier tool and a new roofing system with adjustable support poles, followed by an aquarium shortly after, built with the dedicated glass barrier system and stocked with red lionfish and bannerfish.
The build wraps up with a pass of the nature brush across the wider zoo to fill in trees, grass and shrubs, tying the whole layout together.
Planet Zoo 2 vs Planet Zoo
There's a number of changes and improvements to the first Planet Zoo's systems, and the latest showcase is the clearest picture yet of how building actually feels different in the sequel:
- Upgraded terrain tools: The terrain tools have been overhauled to be significantly more powerful and allow for more creative freedom than in the original game while remaining just as easy to use.
- Staff facilities and guest happiness: Staff buildings used to be kept away from guest areas to avoid hurting guest happiness. That penalty is gone in Planet Zoo 2.
- Scaling scenery and building pieces: Pieces can now be freely scaled rather than being locked to their default size.
- Live water editing: Planet Zoo 2 lets players edit water directly and live, reshaping or resizing it at any point without draining and rebuilding the area.
- Aviaries and aquariums: Neither feature existed in the original Planet Zoo. The sequel adds their dedicated barrier systems and roofing tools, letting players build walk-through bird habitats and fish tanks for the first time.
- Cross-platform Workshop: The Frontier Workshop now works across platforms, meaning console players can use blueprints built by PC players and vice versa, unlike the original game's Workshop, which was PC-only.
Planet Zoo 2 launches on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X on October 13, 2026, with a physical console edition following on October 28.
