A sequel to PZ is imo actually unnecessary. I think it has enough potential to just keep growing and gradually improve the game.
We've already got a lot of quality of life things and they're still possible.
Like the vivarium update that König mentioned. It's not rocket science to just offer a toggle option for some things.
For example:
Why can people walk through walls outside of enclosures but not inside?
Why is the challenge mode so unnecessary? Where is the challenge? Why are there no tasks that you can complete, why is there no star ranking for animals that only appear in the market when you've reached the stars.
Why is there no brush tool for trees, bushes, grass or flowers?
Why are there no birds for the WTE?
For me, a sequel would have to do things that are not possible or only possible to a limited extent with the current game.
One thing that immediately comes to mind is that the building pieces are better managed.
I would like to see just shapes and a dropdown menu that lets us select a texture to go with them (I believe this is how it is in Sims 4 and PK - I don't play either so I'm not sure). I'm so tired of scrolling through the endless lists. And instead of there being new building pieces in DLCs, there are just new textures for the shapes.
Another thing that doesn't work with the current game is placing animals. Please Frontier, if you make a sequel, let's just put the animals in the enclosures like in ZT (and ideally determine their parameters).
I can think of countless other things, but that would go beyond the scope here, although many of them are things that would already be possible.
- This also includes, for example, the fact that I would like to assign zookeepers to specific enclosures without creating a working group. Why can't I click on the enclosure gate and then say "Ok, Bob is now only looking after this enclosure"
- A toggle for objects or the null barrier that visitors can no longer see through, so that they no longer complain that they can't see through the huge rock (no sherlok...)
- I would like to have map skirts in the city and on the coast.
Personally, I would have no problem paying for the animals we already have again. I'm probably the only one here who does that. What I do have problems with is the time, I don't want to wait another 5 years until we have everything together in order to have options.
The base game roster also needs to be much better balanced.
It should contain animals for all continents and biomes and there must be full aquatic animals and free-flying birds (and by that I don't mean in a box, I would be happy with that NOW, in a sequel it's a must-have)
I watched the PC2 trailer. I can see the improvement over the predecessor, but visually it looks almost like PZ to me, or am I mistaken? There are some nice things that I would like to have for PZ, it remains to be seen how it all works. But honestly, would that justify a sequel? (Well, for PZ, I can see the improvement on PC even if it feels more like an expansion pack to me) I will definitely follow the development, but I probably won't play it myself.