Planet Zoo: Console Edition Review – Lions, And Tigers, And Bears, On Console

Planet Zoo: Console Edition sees developer Frontier bringing its in-depth zoo simulation, and spiritual successor to Zoo Tycoon, to PS5 and Xbox for the first time. Much like Planet Coaster on such platforms, it overhauls the menus and tweaks some UI elements and control systems to make them a better fit.

Simulation games are notoriously difficult to control on consoles, and as a pioneer of the genre, Frontier is well aware of this. It’s therefore focused all efforts on making the gameplay experience as console friendly as possible. It’s a huge challenge, but one the studio is more than keen to tackle.

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If you’ve played Planet Coaster, the player characters and world map seen here are the same, but Planet Zoo is far more than just a building and simulation game. That’s reflected in the extensive options available right from the start. Career mode is the best place to start as this sees you edit and extend three different zoos as a sort of tutorial.

Career mode follows a storyline, which kicks off from the second you enter it. While the first few stages are basically tutorials, the only real difference here from the PC version is that your tasks will encourage you to explore all the different menus, and small arrows will help you locate the correct ones. I followed the tutorial, despite having played the PC version regularly since launch, and still found it helpful. If you’re a newcomer to Planet Zoo and an avid console player, these will no doubt help you get to grips with everything.

Core UI elements are also the same. However, the overall menu structure has been adjusted to minimise the number of button presses required to interact with or reach certain things. There’s also a pattern for navigating the levels of menus which is repeated throughout and soon becomes second nature.

Despite introducing a number of worthwhile quality-of-life features that gel nicely with the console version, a few frustrations will undoubtedly surface for players who dabbled with the PC version.

For example, when setting up enclosures you can select an animal to check what they require, but when you navigate to change the terrain or enclosure items, the animal information menu is replaced by terrains or habitats. This means that you cannot see how your changes have affected the animals without navigating back to the beginning. Having to remember all of this info on your own terms instead of the game providing it in a seamless way is quite annoying.

This is handled slightly better in other areas, such as monitoring the required humidity and temperatures for exhibit animals via a simple slider with a mark showing the required setting.

The console edition menus have a decent slate of overall improvements. While there are a couple of frustrations for those moving from one platform to another, for those new to the game it will likely feel easier than you’d expect.

As for the game itself when you move away from the console specific features, Planet Zoo is still the same impressive simulation game it has always been. There are several play modes, with a career, challenge, franchise, timed, and sandbox mode.

Career mode comprises twelve different zoos, all with unique goals to meet, while timed mode allows you to play any unlocked career mode zoos alongside a couple of extras to meet set goals against the clock. Challenge mode lets you play in different zoos offline, while franchise mode requires online play, as you’ll compete against others to build a network of zoos. There’s also a sandbox mode which is vastly flexible, allowing you to set a wide range of parameters and goals. It essentially lets you build a zoo on any map to your own set of goals with custom restrictions, or hit the infinite money button and build with no restrictions.

Visually the game is comparable to PC. I have what many would consider a mid-range PC, and performance on Xbox Series X is very similar. When building and navigating the game, everything is smooth and clear, and the control of the camera feels more nuanced than on PC.

The only time visual artifacts are noticeable is when the camera follows specific animals. From a distance the movement looks great but when you get up close you will see the animals default to behaviour over items, resulting in some clipping through trees or shelters at times. This seems to be related to some items more than others, namely the more uniquely shaped ones.

Since your zoo is so highly customisable the odd clip throughs are likely due to the endless ways you can mix and match items together, often overlapping if you wish. These visual glitches are also on the PC version, but again they are for the most part limited to when you follow the animals closely in photo mode.

Planet Zoo is more than just a surface level simulator as it also includes a wide range of animal and conservation information, which also folds into some of the game’s scenarios. It includes a wide level of zoo customisation, as well as difficulty levels for career and timed modes. The console edition also benefits from years of updates to the original base game, including tweaks to gameplay and entirely new features like educational talks.

Planet Zoo Console Edition can be very complex at times and difficult to get to grips with initially, but with that depth comes a zoo building and management experience unlike any other. You’ll need to cater to animal requirements based on realistic factors, with temperatures, terrain, plants and access to swimmable water, roaming land, and climbable items all based on their behaviour in the real world.

There are different levels of management available allowing you to specify the basics, such as which animals a keeper will care for, to the minutiae of zoo life, such as the quality of the animal feed. The default settings will enable you to run a zoo successfully without deep diving into the specifics of which maintenance worker fills up vending machines, but if you want to fully control everything from the length of time your staff can rest to the price of a soda, you can.

You’ll end up learning a huge amount about both animals and management without even realising it as you sink deeper into one of the most engaging simulation games I’ve ever played.

Planet Zoo: Console Edition

Reviewed On Xbox Series X

Platform(s)

PS5 , Xbox Series X|S

Released

March 26, 2024

Engine

COBRA

ESRB

Everyone 10+ // Crude Humor, Mild Blood, Mild Violence

Pros

• Realistic and engaging
• Deep management experience.
• Solid control system

Cons

• Limited information visible at once
• Some clipping in photo mode

A review code was provided by the publisher.