Wasn’t planning on adding to conversations happening in the PZ forums for a while, for various reasons, but there were some interesting points brought up because of Frontier’s new financial report that I feel like touching on.
For one, as is now clear, the report didn’t provide any additional insight into what’s actually left for PZ’s official support. It could be two more DLCs, it could be another full calendar year. That being said, we will very likely know which DLC will be our last (though Frontier will never officially state it). It will be all about the size of the pack. As both
@Doran and
@yoav_r touched on, Frontier tends to handle all their “building” games in much the same ways. And looking back at PC’s and JWE1’s final DLCs, both were “larger” than what was typical in terms of content. But it should also be mentioned that neither of their final DLCs included any “game-changing” mechanics or features. Both final DLCs were at a higher than typical price point with more items/inclusions than typical, but nothing included that was “outside of the norm”.
I would bet very strongly that PZ’s final DLC won’t feature any animals supported by new mechanics (fully aquatics, free flyers, interactive petting zoos, etc.), but instead will simply flesh out more of what we already have. So like what
@yoav_r suggested, a final DLC combining a typical “building pack” and “animal pack” is what I’m expecting for PZ1’s finale. A unique building theme, about 10 habitat species (if we’re lucky maybe one or two will be a bird or reptile), and maybe two exhibit species.
And that brings me to my next point, what comes after PZ1’s eventual end. First off, when PZ was announced I would have never guessed this game would eventually have more than 15 DLCs and still be receiving official support in 2023. And Frontier has done a great job at delivering a lot of the community’s major requests over the years. They included updates never-seen-before in zoo simulator games, heck, they even actively added numerous popular species from community-ran voting lists. It’s clear that PZ’s devs care about this game and its community, and I’m grateful for that.
But I’d also be lying if I said that I think now, at this point in PZ’s development, that the still-missing “major” features requested by the community are coming to PZ1. It’s clear now that Frontier has transitioned to a different approach in how they handle new PZ DLCs and their accompanying updates, when we look back at the first couple years after PZ’s release compared to now. DLCs, and animal rosters featured in them looked for the most part quite different, and the same can be said for the accompanying major updates. And none of this is neither good nor bad, just a shift in intentions. Frontier now seems to be focusing more on “polishing/adding tweaks” to elements/mechanics already in PZ, and less-so focusing on adding in major, new gameplay mechanics/changes.
Additionally, it’s clear that PZ’s devs really started to get in an “increasingly consistent, creative groove” with their animal/model creation process after years working at it. The divide between base-game animals and species featured in new DLCs consistently becomes more jarring, as new models become more and more realistic as opposed to the older, more stylized/cartoony art direction of PZ.
I personal think a “rebrand” of all the base games animals, with an art direction identical to what we are current getting in new DLCs would be amazing, useful, and honestly really marketable to the general public. Especially if it all came wrapped up in a shiny new game title with multiple major, community-requested features/mechanics that aren’t likely at this point for PZ1.
I’m not saying that I hope/think PZ1 is ending soon, but I’m also not going to pretend that I don’t think a potential PZ2 might be the only way a lot of the still-missing popular PZ requests will ever become reality. Frontier has made a JWE1 and JWE2, they made a PC1 and there is a “leaked” PC2 on the horizon any time now. So following Frontier’s strategy, a PZ2 with a more diversified animal roster and set of features/mechanics seems more than likely within the next 5 to 10 years..
