by Game of Review Team · published 2026-11-07 · updated 2026-11-07
A sequel nobody asked to wait for
Planet Zoo 2 launched on October 13, 2026, and it's still showing up on Steam's weekly top sellers chart weeks later, most recently debuting alongside a wave of new releases in the week ending October 20. Frontier Developments' sequel to its 2019 zoo sim adds fully aquatic animals, flying birds, and a new Wildlife Reserve mode where you release conservation-ready species into open-world habitats instead of keeping everything behind zoo fencing.
What's actually new
- Aquariums for fish, sharks, and sea turtles, built piece by piece like the rest of the construction tools
- Flying aviaries for birds such as the Toco Toucan and Secretarybird
- Wildlife Reserves: open, customizable spaces to release animals from your zoos into
- Career mode through a new in-universe organization called FEN, plus Franchise and Sandbox modes
The catch: it's a rough launch
Critics were mostly kind (84 on Metacritic), but the Steam user base has been a lot less forgiving. The store page currently shows a "Mixed" rating at 62% positive across its English-language reviews, with widely reported complaints about Franchise Mode stability, odd animal behavior, and clunky menus. Frontier has already shipped follow-up patches (1.0.4 and 1.0.5) specifically naming those issues.
Who it's for
Fans of the original Planet Zoo who want more animals, bigger builds, and the new aquarium/aviary systems will find plenty to like here, but anyone sensitive to launch-week bugs might want to wait for a patch or two before diving in.
Our take
Frontier clearly bet big on breadth here, aquariums, aviaries, and open-world reserves is a lot to add in one sequel, and most of it lands. But shipping a management sim with Franchise Mode stability bugs this soon after a beloved predecessor was always going to cost it goodwill on Steam specifically, where the review score is the first thing a shopper sees. The 62% positive rating says less about the game's ceiling than about how much patience players have left for day-one roughness in the genre.
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