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Planet Zoo Review
Released Nov. 13th, 2019

Planet Zoo taught me two main things as I tried to wrangle its beautiful animals and satisfying tycoon economy: running a wildlife preserve can be a lot of fun, and I would be absolutely terrible at it. I can’t blame any lack of tools or inability to find vital information, because those things were all at my fingertips and worked pretty well. But when the in-depth animal welfare screens told me my prized timber wolves were a little bit sad, of course I was going to throw money at them until their accommodations were heavenly and the accountants were in a panic. In that way, Planet Zoo even makes poor business decisions fun.

Much like Frontier’s other theme park world, Planet Coaster, this sim wowed me with a huge amount of customization. The structure and terrain editors are incredibly powerful and easy to use. Which is good, because outside of a handful of pre-made story scenarios, you always start from a boring, flat plain. To give your non-story-mode zoos some drama and character, you’ll either spend a lot of time sculpting the land and placing foliage yourself, or browsing the Steam Workshop for a landscape someone else has made and shared that strikes your fancy. The possibilities go far beyond what I would ever have the skill or patience to make myself based on what I’ve seen other users create already, and it’s great to have access to it all. I did wish, though, that the franchise mode would have let me start on a map with a bit more realistic terrain without having to rely on other users.

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-- Source: http://www.ign.com/articles/2019/11/13/planet-zoo-review