A Beginner's Guide to Planet Zoo – The Basics

In Planet Zoo you can create, manage, research and develop the zoo of your dreams across four different game modes.

Career Mode

Embark on a globe-trotting campaign mode and progress through a career in zoo management. If you’re new to Planet Zoo, we recommend starting with Career Mode to help you learn the basics.

Career Scenarios

• Complete objectives to achieve bronze, silver and gold star awards.
• Unique scenarios from around the world for you to complete.
• Story driven with colourful characters.

Timed Scenarios

• Complete objectives against the clock.
• Bronze, silver and gold stars are awarded based on how long it takes you to complete all objectives.
• Objectives will need to be maintained once completed or they risk uncompleting themselves.
• Unlock in game scenery statues for each scenario based on your awarded stars.

Franchise Mode

Build a network of connected zoos around the globe and trade your animals online.

• Build a series of connected zoos all around the world.
• Trade habitat animals with other players on the Animal Market.
• Take part in Community Challenges.*
• Conservation Credits are shared between all the zoos in your Franchise, but cash is not.
• You must be online to play this mode.

*Community challenges will be coming to Planet Zoo: Console Edition on April 2nd 2023.

Challenge Mode

Put your skills to the test and build your zoo offline with a full economy and challenges.

• Start your zoo from scratch.
• Full animal and economy simulation.
• Optional challenges to complete.

Sandbox Mode

Let your imagination run wild in the freedom of Sandbox mode and build your dream zoo with no restrictions.

• Build a zoo without limits.
• Optional animal and economy settings to customise your experience.
• Limitless creativity.

Once you select your chosen game mode, you’ll be presented with a few settings, including the difficulty.

Planet Zoo features three difficulty settings allowing you to control the challenge and alter how difficult the game is, choosing between easy, medium or hard.

These difficulty settings are available in all game modes and the difficulty is set before a new scenario or zoo is started. Don’t worry though, if you’re finding it too much of a challenge, the difficulty can also be changed mid-game through the settings menu.

Each difficulty setting modifies the challenge you’ll face in a few different ways, with Easy providing a more laid back experience and Hard giving a more realistic representation of the animals and how they need to be cared for.

Easy Difficulty

• Animal welfare is more easily maintained.
• It takes longer for animals to get stressed.
• Animals take longer to die when their needs are critical.
• Animals never get bored of enrichment items.
• Guests learn more from education sources.
• Guest happiness drops at a slower rate.
• Guests won't request refunds.
• Guests are more willing to spend cash.
• 5* Guest Happiness Rating requires an average happiness of 80%.
• Staff take longer to get tired.
• Staff can move faster.
• Staff get a larger happiness boost from training.

Medium Difficulty

• Animals never get bored of enrichment items.
• Guests won't request refunds.
• 5* Guest Happiness Rating requires an average happiness of 85%.

Hard Difficulty

• Animal welfare is harder to maintain.
• Animals get stressed faster.
• Animals will die quicker when an issue is critical.
• Animals get bored of enrichment items.
• Guests learn less from education sources.
• Guest happiness drops at a faster rate.
• Guests request refunds.

Along with difficulty, when selecting Franchise, Challenge or Sandbox modes, the location of your zoo is also chosen when a zoo is first opened. In Career mode, the location of the zoo is set by the narrative.

A zoo's location is defined by the continent and biome it is set in, with the location presenting different modifications to the gameplay.

The choice of continent and biome will impact the following:

• The weather and temperature experienced in your zoo.
• The immediate suitability of the environment for animals.
• The probability of animals appearing on the market.

Continents

• Europe
• North America
• South and Central America
• Asia
• Africa
• Oceania
• Antarctica

Biomes

• Tundra – cold polar and mountainous regions.
• Taiga – a cool biome defined by its coniferous trees.
• Temperate – varied temperature and mixed tree types.
• Grassland – warm vast open areas of grass.
• Tropical – warm and often humid these biomes include rainforests.
• Desert – hot and arid.
• Aquatic – used for animal suitability but is not selectable as a zoo location.

The controls of Planet Zoo have been built from the ground up to be accessible and intuitive – including on gamepads.

The best way to learn how to move around your zoo and navigate the various in-game menus is to complete the tutorial as part of Career Mode. This tutorial has been designed to equip you with all the tools you need to get started with Planet Zoo and will introduce you to Bernie Goodwin as you help complete renovations of the beloved zoo, Goodwin House.

Controls

PC

Many of Planet Zoo's controls can be customised on PC to your personal preference through the Controls tab in the Settings menu.

Basic movement of the cursor and camera is controlled through your mouse, with the camera panning as you move to the edge of the screen. Most menus and objects can be interacted with by simply left clicking on them to open further interaction options.

Here are some other basic inputs to get you started:

Console

We’ve already gone into some more detail on gamepad gameplay which you can find in our Controller Guide.

Camera Modes

There are a few different ways that you can view and move around your zoo.

The game camera is available in the following modes:

• Standard mode - rotates the camera around a fixed point in front of it.
• Freelook mode - rotates the camera around itself.
• Explore mode - slow camera movement at a fixed height above the terrain.
• Scenic mode - places the camera at a chosen location, around which it will move for great vistas of the zoo. Different movement paths, zoom and speed levels can be selected. Additionally, camera effects can be enabled.
• Cinematic mode - opens an editor in which custom camera paths can be created for highly detailed showcased of a zoo.

Planet Zoo also features some specialised camera modes, allowing you to snap the camera to your animals, view security camera feeds and even look through a guest’s own eyes in first person mode!