DLC Speculation thread (Starting out with a theory of my own)

[SalamAnders]

I don't know if there already is a thread like this, and I hope I am not the only one to find this kind of speculation fun while we wait for news.

There is a lot of Wishlists and such on this forum, which is cool. But I think it could be interesting with a thread were we focus more on where we think the DLCs are going, rather than where we hope they are going. I guess you could call it fantheories. So here we can give examples on DLCs/updates we think will happen, maybe as the next announcement or later on, big or small. I want you to give arguments for your theories, like why you think Frontier might go in this direction, or why you think this feature is realistic to add to the game and so on. I hope it is clear what I mean.

I know we don't have a lot of clues to prove our points with, it is basically only the sun bear leak these days. So this will probably be based more on speculation rather than facts, but I still want you to try to be realistic.


I can start out with a theory of my own - The sun bear could show up in an Island themed DLC.

Personally I think Frontier wants to take a break from the continental/area themed DLCs, since every continent got at least one scenery pack by now, and I think the themed scenery sets were part of the reason for doing the DLCs this way. I think the next couple of DLCs will be build more like the Aquatic pack, with themes that can cover animals from several continents and biomes, to add to several continents at once. And with scenery that doesn't necessarily have a big connection to the theme. An Island themed DLC could be done like that.

Sun bears are not the most obvious choice for an island DLC, since they are not only found on islands. But Frontier doesn't always go in the most obvious direction for their picks. The aquatic pack was mostly semi-aquatic and the dall sheep isn't really a perfect match for an arctic theme.
We also know Frontier have worked together with Chester Zoo for this game, and they house their sun bears in an area I believe is called 'The Islands', so I could see Frontier finding this animal a good match.

Frontier had good response on adding additional South American species in the Aquatic pack, an Island pack could do the same for Australia. A lot of fans were sad not to see the Tasmanian Devil in the AU pack, they could make up for this by adding them in an Island DLC.
The kiwi also seem to be a fairly popular animal, but there isn't a lot of obvious themes to put it in. If the Australian pack had been called Oceania it would have fit in there, but that didn't happen. Now an Island DLC to me fells like its best change of making it into the game.

I think an Island pack is going to visit Madagascar as well. If they add a third lemur, it probably would backfire if it doesn't feel unique enough compared to the others. An Aye-aye, sifaka or bamboo lemur would probably be one of the best choices for a new lemur. If not a lemur, they would probably go with the fossa.

When it comes to exhibit animals, this theme is also a good opportunity to add something different but not too complicated. Like the kiwi, this would probably be our best chance to see the tuatara, otherwise I think they will go with either a species of gecko or chameleon with relation to Madagascar or South-East Asian islands.

 

[random goat]

I also included a potential Islands pack in one of the threads where we were asked to come up with 12 DLCs or something (I believe it was created by NZFanatic). I also specified that Borneo and Madagascar would/should be the main islands to tackle in an hypothetical Islands Pack. In my opinion it'd be quite appealing because, indeed, they could mix up species and scenery from different continents.So I think its a good DLC candidate with some of the species you've mentioned.

Based on the leaked sun bear, I'd be surprised if we get a SouthEast Asia DLC, given that in the past the packs have been way more general than that (hello South America). So if we indeed get something from Asia it'd sadly just be the actual continent as a whole (Asia Pack). It's worth mentioning that the sun bear is not bound to be part of the next DLC, it could well be part of the summer DLC. The leak itself is a proof that they work in DLC animals way before the previous DLC is released. I'm pretty sure at least some animals from the South America pack were partially created at launch.

Other than that, I also think a Mountain pack and specially a Desert pack are quite likely too. This is pure speculation but I feel that the most underrepresented biomes right now are alpine and desert. A Desert Pack would include some of the most requested animals like the meerkat, fennec fox, addax, etc., while a Mountain pack could feature the cougar/puma, alpine ibex, hamadryas baboon, etc.

 

[DarthQuell]

In the case of the bear, I once suggested that it may be 1 of 2 possibilities:

1. Carnivore Pack - so, it'd feature animals in the Carnivora group, such as canines, felines, mustelids

2. Tropical Pack - a pack revolved around tropical animals. Maybe each species represents a different continent

 

[nutrit]

Love your idea, definitely much more than the island’s oriented dlc which in my opinion would be quite limited to Madagascar and Indonesia.

I would be really happy with Tropical pack with:

Sun bear
Capybara
Gibbon
Red River hog

 

[SalamAnders]

I don't see why an island DLC would be limited to Madagascar and Indonesia. As mentioned Tasmania and New Zealand are good places to look as well. Other options could be Sri Lanka and Japan.
It could be covering several biome types, not only tropical.

I feel like it would be bad timing for a strictly tropical DLC, same with South East Asia as it would probably only be tropical species.
I believe tropical is very well represented compared to other biomes at this point (which makes sense, since a big amount of species are found in this biome), tropical species have been added in 3 out 4 DLCs so far + deluxe.

A partly tropical DLC I could see happen again though, like an Island DLC would be.

As Random Goat said desert is more left out, when it comes to biomes. It is also an area I feel like more players are starting to want to play with, but don't have many animals to use for it. I wouldn't be surprised to see this soon. We actually got quite a lot of North American desert foliage, but not really any North American desert habitat animals.

 

[12344321]

Southeast Asia has some of the highest biodiversity on Earth and unique species. I'd be disappointed if the next dlc didn't focus on this area of the world. We already got Orangutan, Komodo Dragon, Indian Rhinoceros, Asian Elephants and Bengal Tigers I could see this area getting a little more attention so it feels more full. And since Asia is so big and diverse in terms of biomes I think it would make sense to regionalize the Asian dlc into a tropical asian dlc.

And for speculation since gibbons are so highly requested, I think a brachiation mechanic to properly show their movement would be the 1.5 update and those mechanics could be altered and reused for oranguatan animations to some degree.

I think the NEXT major update 1.6 would be flying mechanics or burrowing mechanics, two systems we really need if the aviary dlc is ever coming or if meerkats are ever coming in to the game.

 

[12344321]

I get everyone wants polar regions and deserts to be more represented but thats not how biodiversity works...there's just a plethora of animals to choose from the tropics.

We got an arctic pack without musk ox...that should have been foreshadowing for the future of dlc models.

 

[jcp011c]

This is not me personally, but it also kind of is, but mainly more logic. I think the next 5 DLC will be (not in any order here) Africa, Asia, Europe, North American, Avian - I do think the avian pack will be the "big" december 2021 release though. At three packs a year that takes us through the 2nd pack of 2022.

After that, depending on if is just runs through 2022 or goes into 2023, we could get 1 or 4 more packs. I don't think more than that. Potentially a combination of revisiting South American and Australia in some kind of biome theme. Or just a popular animals pack - I think that would likely happen if there's just 1 more pack after the above 5.

 

[SalamAnders]

I get everyone wants polar regions and deserts to be more represented but thats not how biodiversity works...there's just a plethora of animals to choose from the tropics.

Yes of course the biodiversity is much higher in the tropics, and the tropics should be better represented than deserts, which it already is and also would be after a desert DLC. But this is a zoo game after all, and we have to look at what zoos got on display, and most zoos got some desert animals. Also a big part of the biodiversity in the tropics are because of animals like invertebrates, reptiles, amphibians and flying birds, which is all complicated in the game. Of course also a lot mammals, but they tend to be smaller in size, and because of that less likely to make it into the game. We already got a descent amount of larger tropical species like great apes, big cats, elephants, bongos, okapis, pygmy hippos to name some. I agree we could use more South East Asian animals, but I don't think they are more important than desert species at this point.

 

[NL_Mutso]

My prediction for 2021: would be Asia, Africa or Desert and if there's any chance for aviary it would be December.
If aviaries are not added in december 2021 - my guess would be december 2022.

I'm not convinced they are going that specific with SouthEast Asia. Would be somewhat of a surprise if they take that road suddenly.
Not against the idea, I like animals from that specific region.

 

[jcp011c]

My prediction for 2021: would be Asia, Africa or Desert and if there's any chance for aviary it would be December.
If aviaries are not added in december 2021 - my guess would be december 2022.

I'm not convinced they are going that specific with SouthEast Asia. Would be somewhat of a surprise if they take that road suddenly.
Not against the idea, I like animals from that specific region.

Agree on your second part. That can be flipped over to biomes as well. Sure, I can come up with 4/1 animals for an African, Middle Eastern or American desert. But if that's the only desert pack we'd get, you'd have the other regions of deserts not as well represented and one region overly represented. So if they did biomes, it would probably be closer to how they did the aquatic pack. Here's 2 from Africa, 1 or 2 from America, 1 2 or two from Middle East and so forth. There would be a better globally represented balance.

Also getting specific to countries is a bit of a long shot too. I'm not saying those suggestions don't have merit, or that I dislike the idea, I just don't see them releasing a DLC from one country - Australia excepting as it's also an entire continent, and was starkly almost non-existent in the base game habitat animals.

 

[12344321]

My prediction for 2021: would be Asia, Africa or Desert and if there's any chance for aviary it would be December.
If aviaries are not added in december 2021 - my guess would be december 2022.

I'm not convinced they are going that specific with SouthEast Asia. Would be somewhat of a surprise if they take that road suddenly.
Not against the idea, I like animals from that specific region.

Why is southeast asia a sudden road though?

PZ already did continent dlc (S.America) and specific country dlc (Australia dlc) plus different biome dlc's with aquatic and arctic packs.

Asia is far too immense to give us just 4 animals representing the entire continent, I think they could do a Mountain or Deserts of the world pack for sure. But they could even do two dlc from Asia (maybe a temperate asia and a tropical asia dlc)?

There's also so much overlap of asia and europe as well. I would love a Eurasian dlc with przewalskis horses, golden eagles and raccoon dogs! I think anything is possible in regards to what the dlc's "theme" could be...

 

[NL_Mutso]

Why is southeast asia a sudden road though?

Because that's a region within a continent, and 2 other were just continents, not specified to a specific region?

 

[SalamAnders]

The idea that DLCs have to be based on continents/regions/biomes seems very stuck in the community. Occasionally you do see other ideas, but it really isn't often, besides from aviary packs and such.

Personally I would like to see Frontier get more creative with the themes, rather than just doing geographical and biome type DLCs. I am unsure how likely they are to do it. It for sure is easier to come up with themes like that and when the bigger part of the community are expecting them, why even bother getting more creative.
The Aquatic pack might show that they are willing to do things differently, but it currently is really hard to predict. They might as well just continue doing packs for every continent, because it is easy.

 

[NL_Mutso]

The idea that DLCs have to be based on continents/regions/biomes seems very stuck in the community. Occasionally you do see other ideas, but it really isn't often, besides from aviary packs and such.

There were a lot of threads and suggestions for other DLC. (we had several; How would you do DLC)

Recently we are just expecting certain types of DLC, based on what we already got.Used to be somewhat different.

 

[ElectricMonk]

Would LOVE a pack with sun bear, kiwi, tassie devil and fossa. If I were Frontier, though, I’d probably save tassie devil for an endangered species pack (maybe include Tasmanian wallaby instead) and would probably have kiwi as a habitat animal in a birds pack (not sure of a good replacement though)... I’d guess that the next pack would include a semi-aquatic animal to utilise the aquatic mechanics from the last update....

I agree that there’s a strong likelihood that they’ll move away from continental / regional packs from now.

 

[eviltiger13]

Islands....ok. continent....ok. but planet zoo does not need to be restricted to location.

What about being focus on a a game concept. Like a pack dedicated to Exhibits. And include larger and smaller exhibits . And would include a huge variety of smaller animals such as hedgehogs, rats, spiders, ants, praying mantis, tarsiers. 20 plus I think. That way numerous regions and types. New structural items would really focus on size and undergrowth. Think honey I shrunk the kids meets enchanted forrest.

2. I want an endangered species pack. This gives frontier freedom to pick 5 truly at risk animals from ANY region. Resulting in some truly unique animals like black rhino, sea turtle, saola, etc. Heck even the sun bear could fit into this DLC. Structural themed items would include bones furs and feathers. Things to display the consequences of extinction due to humans. I want to build displays warning people not to buy shells or furs. I want to have statues in this pack dedicated to those we lost like tasmanian tiger, quagga. The cool thing about putting these bones is the community might be able to make full skeletons of animals. I remember seeing the dodo skeleton at Jersey zoo as a child and this haunted me. Then in later life I saw the stuffed quagga at the natural history museum with the last iconic photo of it.

4. Finally a birds of paradise and prey pack. This could be two packs. Not going to list animals here cause there are too many. But structurally I want to see branches added to habitat climbing construction. Just something more natural looking than those big logs something to attach on to cliff surfaces on that far wall or build ur own climbing tree.

Just my thoughts

 

[SalamAnders]

Glad to see people are joining in on the thread, and some debates and disagreements are going on. That is cool.

A big amount of people seem to want updated exhibits, especially size variation. If they add this feature, I think they are more likely to do it in a free update coming along a DLC (perhaps with more than just one exhibit species in it), rather than doing an exhibit DLC. I simply don't think an exhibit animal only DLC would sell well, even if they looked into adding small mammals and such to it.

 

[DarthQuell]

An idea I had was that maybe there's a new type of enclosure that is larger than vivariums but smaller than habitats. This can be designed to house any animal too large for exhibits, but too small for habitats (Armadillos, Roadrunners, etc.) Maybe it can double as an aviary

 

[NL_Mutso]

A big amount of people seem to want updated exhibits, especially size variation

I'm a great supporter of more interesting exhibits.
To me, they were stale from the start.

I agree that an exhibit animal only DLC wouldn't be popular. I'ts a nice interaction scenery item for a lot of people. And a great way to fill in spots, when there's no more room for a habitat animal