Why throw away something profitable for relatively low effort?
I do want to say that we shouldn't confuse what we "feel" as being low effort with it actually
being low effort.
Models, animations and textures are the parts that we as end-users focus on a lot because that's the part we get to see but that's literally just one part of DLC development. There's research, both for stuff ingame and market research, there's internationalization, there's QA, there's a big chunk of project management, there's marketing, etc.
Development in general is such an iceberg situation to anyone outside of the field/team that's developing it that it's easy to make assumptions about the costs and the effort going into it; but without having inside information we have literally no clue if they're making these packs on a lower budget than they were before.
It's not that I'm denying that there's more reused animations and probably more reused models bases than before, and obviously our free updates have downsized drastically; but at the same time the first is also a direct result of the extensive library they have right now and it could also very well be that part of the budget is now reallocated to also support the console releases. There's no way of knowing really.
All I'm saying, we should be really careful with things in the line of "PZ is making easy money right now" (phrased more drastically than you did obviously but it's a common sentiment); because whilst we see the revenue we have no information on the budget side of things.
Once they're all in on PZ2, sure, DLC will probably stop, but again, I'm not going to worry about that when either way it means more content.
As
@AndyZoos already pointed out, if PZ2 is the CY26 CMS game then they're most definitely already far into development. We can all agree that there's going to have to be a gap between the last DLC and the sequel, so I think it's fair to say that that gap is approaching. How many DLCs we'll see between now and that gap is honestly up in the air and I can really see it go either way. If they make enough money on other stuff they can afford to make the gap wider and get some goodwill, but if they don't then they're going to make the gap as short as possible.
But I do agree with you here, it's nothing to worry about especially as it also means that if PZ is still doing well that the sequel also has a lot of market potential. People still seem to really like this genre and Frontiers take on it, so that's good for those who still enjoy that!
but that coupled with the surprisingly fast announcement of the upcoming DLC pack seems to indicate there are at least a few more to come before DLC wraps up
This however I'm going to refute because the same exact scenario happened to JWE2 at the end of development. The two last packs came about as fast after each other as these two seem to be, so if that is anything to go by that might not be the good news some are hoping for haha.
Basically TLDR; I think that both scenarios are an option. If Frontier is comfortable enough with profits of PC2 and JWE3 then I think it's not entirely unreasonable that the current game ends at 20 DLCs and that resources get allocated to the sequel. If PC2 and JWE3 aren't profitable enough, they are for sure going to keep using PZ to boost their sales.
. Developed some kind of medical condition in the last 2ish years that causes me to sweat at like extreme levels. In spring, fall and winter its "just" annyoning and little embarrassing. But at summertime i basicly cant leave the house or within minutes i look like i just stepped out of the shower lol
I wonder what they're cooking up for us? 
