Planet Zoo seems to be on a roll with releasing content this past year and with every DLC that has been released recently, there has also been an update for free users too, which in some cases have even offered more than the actual paid DLC.
The last couple of expansions have brought with it some big game changing mechanics and Planet Zoo Update 1.5 has followed that same trend, bringing with it some amazing new features.
If you haven’t played the latest DLC take a look at our Planet Zoo Southeast Asia Animal Pack DLC article here.
New Statues
If you’ve not been into completing scenarios, or just focus on sandbox and Franchise, now might be the time to reconsider, the latest update has added new Scenario Statues which can be unlocked by completing scenarios.
If you’ve already completed scenarios, the game will check your steam account and the first time you login after downloading the update you will see a screen showing you all the statues you have unlocked.
This is a great idea, and I really hope that Frontier continue to work on progress driven rewards like this, it’s actually made me want to play more and jump onto more scenarios.
If you click on any of the scenarios you can check which statue you will unlock upon completing it. As you can see from the picture above, I hadn’t done much with timed scenarios before, I’ve absolutely started working on them now as the statues are a great incentive.
The statues have their own filter under the construction tab, so they are extremely easy to find, they’re also not too expensive either, so have a play around with them, they look really nice in my zoo.
New Water UI
With the last update 1.4 we had a lot of changes around water, 1.5 continues picking up the pace on making water more manageable in Planet Zoo.
The new UI shows you the exact volumes of water, as well as how clean it is, which is extremely handy for those trying to maintain lakes for their animals, as well as showing the temperature and average water depth.
Thanks to the new Planet Zoo water UI keeping your water dwelling pets is now going to be a breeze.
Multiple Entrances
We can now build more than one entrance, I know, it’s about time! As well as having more entrances you can now place a guest spawner, which must be placed near an entrance or it will set off a warning alert.
The new entrances have been made expensive, so if you’re starting a new zoo, don’t plan to build one straight away, plan your design ahead to make sure you can easily add it later, once you have some profit coming in.
Billboards
This one is a returning feature to the Franchise, Planet Coaster already can already add custom displays and billboards, which is something that has resulted in some awesome designs in my park.
The custom displays & billboards are controlled by a folder on your computer, they also must be the correct size to match whichever screen you are wanting images / videos on, so make sure to check sizes in game before adding your media.
Staff Travel Routes
Heatmaps are a fantastic way of managing your park and understanding key aspects of what is working or not working well so you can make changes to ensure maximum efficiency.
I tend to place down too many keeper huts and some awful work zones, so being able to follow staff travel routes, means I can now identify any issues and start working out ways to make them more efficient and hopefully save you money by not needlessly hiring too many staff members.
Other Changes
As well as the changes mentioned above Frontier announced that there was another round of fixes for Planet Zoo with the update too, as well as some other minor features such as bringing the multi-select tool back.
Finally, and one of the changes which is going to bring some interesting Steam Workshop items out soon, players are now able to save their Franchise Zoo’s as a sandbox save, this will allow you to then upload them to Steam. If you save as Sandbox you will keep your franchise zoo, it won’t be overwritten.
