The big question is would that really be worth a sequel though. At the very least, I would absolutely expect PZ2 to have both marine animals and flying animals (bats/butterflies aside) from the get go, otherwise, why bother, at least for me. Though I agree, building underwater tunnels is a pain in the behind.
There could be some improvements of course, better pathing, animal personality individuality (similar to the genetics but with how their behavior and animations cycle), game engine updates for sure...but all that comes second to what PZ is actually missing birds and marine animals, again just IMO.
For me, refining the in-game systems and implementing birds in some way could go a
long way. Improved pathing, a more customizable lighting system, texture-swapping for wall sets, upgrades to animal personalities, and something like scaling alongside an upgrade to the existing exhibit mechanics to make them more customizable and some sort of aviary feature? That would be worth the price of admission to me.
I'd even be okay waiting a bit for birds if the aviary features were just
hinted at upon base game release.
Will be interesting to see how the build up and release of the dlc will be. Like Will they do something similar to the previous times with 2 weeks of screenshots and stuff, or will they put out a trailer and throw out the dlc a couple days after like they did for the JWE secret species pack
Probably not, even before with other JWE2 packs while there was a week gap they only showcased a couple out of the 4 creatures in the pack meanwhile with PZ every single pack has revealed every animal between announce and launch. Plus, for JWE packs we see all species on announce day, whereas for PZ we only get a couple and the rest later on. I doubt they show us a couple with announcement and the rest we have to see when it launches.
Yeah, they've always handled the JWE2 drops very differently than the PZ ones. Both in terms of timing and content. What I find interesting though is that we've almost always had a livestream, the initial DLC announcement the next day, and then ~1.5-2 weeks of reveals. The last two releases have been significantly shorter between announce and release (~1 week).
As we're likely not getting a "special livestream" I do wonder if we might go back to the "early" form of teasing like they used with the Arctic and South American packs, albeit with a more modern twist (similar to how they handled the anniversary release back in November but with more animals and/or scenery to tease; and I doubt they'd be
as obvious as those first two teases were LOL). Something like that leading up to the release could be just as much fun as the special livestreams and could really pump up engagement on socials...