Planet Zoo – Wetlands Animal Pack & Update 1.9 Review!
Planet Zoo returns again for its first major release of 2022. Alongside the Wetlands Animal Pack, which introduces eight new critters for you to place your zoo, they have also dropped the free Update 1.9, which brings a selection of interesting enhancements to the overall game.
Wetlands Animal Pack DLC
This latest DLC is a little smaller than December’s Europe Pack, as it is specifically focused on just the animals, not animals and props. However, what you do get are some utterly adorable additions to add to your zoo, along with a brand new “wetlands” timed scenario map to play with. The animals include the South America Capybara, which comes with a Hot Water Tap enrichment, ideal for it to splash about with. You also get the wonderfully goofy oddity that is the Platypus – a mammal that lay eggs which also is also venomous… With its duckbill, beavertail, otter-like feet, to quote the late great Robin Williams, “do you think God gets stoned once in a while? Look at a Platypus, I think so!”
Next, we have the adorable Asian Small-Clawed Otter, which has some beautiful new animations, so you can watch for hours as they perform deep dives and perform aquatic pirouettes in their enclosure. Another new animal with a unique animation is the elegant Red-Crowned Crane, which you can watch try and attract a partner with its mating dance. The pack also includes the stealthy Spectacled Caiman, the sturdy Wild Water Buffalo, and the agile Nile Lechwe. Lastly, the Wetlands Animal Pack DLC comes with one new exhibit animal, the Danube crested newt.
In addition to the Hot Water Tap, other new enrichment objects include a smaller version of the Underwater Feeder, a Beatles-esque “Yellow Submarine” Underwater Buoy, and a new Natural Water Jet which allows you to better hide water spouts in your rock formations.
The new pack also brings a new timed scenario challenge, set in the Pantanal, Brazil, the world’s largest wetland. You take control of an animal sanctuary aiming to rescue struggling species. As with the other timed scenarios, you take over the management duties and are given a limited period to rescue a bunch of critters and help them thrive. You are also required to entertain and educate your visitors about these new species to build up a profitable zoo.
Update 1.9
Update 1.9 is also a little smaller than the massive 1.8 update, which added Restaurants to the game, focusing a little more on quality of life changes, and enhancements to the visuals.
The one big shift comes to those layabout Educator staff. Previously, your lazy Educators only ever bothered to provide education to your visitors when they went to give talks at specific talk points you placed around your zoo. Now, they will also educate people as they wander around the parks as well, giving mini-talks to your guests. There are new options for Educators, so you can set if a staff member will just act as a Roaming Educator, a Talk Point Educator, or work as both. It’s a great change, which adds a huge amount of value to the Educator staff in your zoo.
Next, we move on to some changes to the camera modes. The “Standard Mode” and “Freelook Mode” modes are still there, but have been joined by “Explore Mode”. This allows you to place yourself at a guest-level point of view, whilst still being able to edit scenery. If you’re worried that the big rock you just placed could be blocking your guest’s view, now you can easily check, and make adjustments. You can also move around in this mode, as though you were a guest in the zoo, giving you a whole new immersive experience.
One of the QoL additions in 1.9 is a new Audio Visual Management Screen which allows you to manage the screens and speakers within your Zoo from one location. This lets you see which clips or audio are being used by each output device, as well as the status and running costs of each screen, speaker, or camera.
In addition to that, you can now add the Webcam feeds from burrows to your billboards, meaning no more eyestrain for your visitors looking at tiny screens to see your underground animals. Speaking of burrows, both Meerkats and Prairie Dogs now have access to small burrows, giving you even more webcam feeds to impress your visitors.
Another animal behaviour change comes with new bathing behaviours. You can now create a shallow pool of water and heat it with a water temperature regulator to create the perfect hot spring for your Japanese Macaque to bathe in. This helps to reduce animal stress, so it’s a great way to provide a more relaxing environment within your habitats. To help you create these shallow pools, they have added a “Flatten to Terrace” brush that offers a Terrace Height setting and a Shallow Pool Offset option, which are incredibly helpful if you’re wanting to create rice terrace structures within your Zoo.
Lastly, with the introduction of the Wetlands Pack, they have also brought some additions to water for the main game in the free update. You can now completely customise the colour of water in any exhibit, along with adding Mist and Bubble effects to your Habitat’s water. These new options are available in the water information panel. This change also allows you to change the water colour in your exhibits too, along with changing the colour of your exhibit “shell” (no more boring plain black!)
If you’re a fan of business sim games and/or building games, ‘Planet Zoo’ continues to be one of the best on the market. The Wetlands Animal Pack DLC comes in at £7.99 and is a nice little addition, adding some really unique animals to your zoo. Update 1.9 is free and gives you some good little enhancements, making Educators more useful, and dropping in some decent QoL changes. If you’ve not yet joined the ‘Planet Zoo’ family, now is a great time to jump in!
