What I like about the DLC packs of Planet Zoo.

[leehonglocal]

Here's what I like about each of every DLC packs of Planet Zoo. I wasn't sure if there was already a kind of thread like that somewhere.

Arctic: Polar bear. Every zoo games had polar bears.
South America: Most of those I like, and debut of one New-World monkey
Australia: Most of those minus dingo are my expected. Kangaroo and koala (being best known Australian animals) together.
Aquatic: King penguin and the debut of one of either seal or sea lionm And do most zoos had one freshwater otter species? That why I expected otters to be in that latest zoo game.
Southeast Asia: Clouded leopard, binturong and another pig beside warthog. Also that makes Malayan tapir and one other tapir species there.
Africa: The debut of an African-native rhino species, and second penguin species. Most zoo rhinos were white ones like nowadays. And that pack could have more African animals. At least some I hoped for had arrived in later packs after that pack.
North America: Most of those are what I wanted and hoped for to be there. Also, Arctic fox and Arctic wolf together. Alligator, crocodile, gharial and caiman (optional to me) completed the crocodilian set.
Europe: A deer species beside reindeer and moose being one. Badger wasn't what I expected.
Wetlands: Capybara, Asian buffalo species, platypus, and one crane species. Asian small-clawed otters were seen in Malaysian and Singapore zoos (most of those).
Conservation: Scimitar oryx and Przewalski's horse
Twilight: Less interested and expected
Grasslands: Emu, wallaby species and armadillo species. Spotted and striped hyenas there, and both wildebeest species there.
Tropical: Lar gibbon as another gibbon beside siamang being black.
Arid: Dromedary camel and crested porcupine. And the sand cat I didn't ask for looked as cute as domestic kittens yet probably not safe since they're wild and untamable.
Oceania: Less interested. And the third penguin species I've been expecting.amd hoping wasn't what I had in mind.
Eurasia: Wild boar, and bisons of both North American and Europe being there although I less expected that.
Barnyard: Alpaca. And the domestic cattle could've been not highland one. Also domestic horse could have been picked.
Zookeeper: Markhor and one baboon species.Anyone think Hamadryas ones could be prefect zoo baboons? That's what I thought.
Americas: American flamingo as another flamingo from the New World while the previous flamingo species is Old World. Also, bighorn sheep.

 

[Mjmannella]

Here's how I feel
Deluxe: Komodo dragons are still one of the best models in the whole game, a hefty testament with the game lasting for 6 years now. Pygmy hippos are also a solid pick.
Arctic: Caribou, our first deer! Dall sheep are also extremely underrated and I'm glad Frontier isn't afraid of curveballs.
South America: Giant anteaters were a strange omission, nice to see them included. The llama and capuchin are also solid.
Australia: cassowaries were a curveball that was very appreciated.
Aquatic: The seal was a very nice model, and great at showcasing how deep-diving works. The penguin and caiman were also nice to have.
Southeast Asia: Right now, the tapir might have to be my favourite animal from this pack. But the fact that this spearheaded us finally getting more animals per DLC pack was an excellent step in the right direction. But honestly I think the only weak link here is the sun bear.
Africa: The penguin I guess? This one left me super dry TBH.
North America: Alligators and moose are animals I love equally. Definitely my highlight pack of 2021. Beavers are nice to have too.
Europe: The badger was very unexpected but I loved that kind of curveball, much like the cassowaries. The deer was a great addition as well.
Wetlands: I love pretty much every animal here minus the otter. Easily one of my favourite DLC packs for this game.
Conservation: The siamang's neat, and showed Frontier's not afraid of re-considering the infamous awkwardness with climbing.
Twilight: Wombat is the only good thing about this pack.
Grasslands: I like the wallaby and armadillo, less keen on the rest though. That said, butterflies got be super optimistic they'd finally stop restricting Exhibit Animals to 1 per DLC pack.
Tropical: Aside from the gibbon, this is probably the best there is for scenery packs. And sadly the last time they innovated with walkthrough exhibits...
Arid: Black rhinos rounded out the Big 5 (species-wise), the porcupine was a long-requested addition, and the other ungulates are pretty solid picks. A stellar Animal Pack IMO!
Oceania: Tasmanian devils hard-carried this pack for me. Shame they're worthless from a gameplay perspective due to their short lifespans...
Eurasia: Takin, saiga, sloth bear, and swan are all great picks. Another solid Animal Pack.
Barnyard: I think every animal besides the alpaca was a great pick. Shame there weren't any Shetland ponies though...
Zookeeper: The tortoise and the primates are the highlights here for me. Not super keen on the rest, but the spectacled bear earns a respectable 4th place.
Western: The saki and rhea carrying this pack for me. Getting a lot of unpleasant vibes I prior felt from Africa and Twilight...

 

[leehonglocal]

Barnyard: I think every animal besides the alpaca was a great pick. Shame there weren't any Shetland ponies though...
Zookeeper: The tortoise and the primates are the highlights here for me. Not super keen on the rest, but the spectacled bear earns a respectable 4th place.
Western: The saki and rhea carrying this pack for me. Getting a lot of unpleasant vibes I prior felt from Africa and Twilight...

Any evident/proof that that nameless next pack was call Western, or was that guess?

 

[Mjmannella]

The only "evidence" is that this packs to be porting over the Western theme from Planet Coaster, it would make sense to have the scenery theme match with the pack's name.

Aside from evidence, it's just a nice and snappy name that gets the big idea across without stepping on eggshells (some people here have criticised the use of Latin America and Neotropial). The Western Animal Pack has animals from the Western Hemisphere and has a Western building theme. I think it adds up.

We won't know for sure until next week though, as that's likely when they'll formally announce the new DLC Pack.

 

[Iben]

The only "evidence" is that this packs to be porting over the Western theme from Planet Coaster, it would make sense to have the scenery theme match with the pack's name.

I can't see any piece on the key-art that suggest that they're porting over the Western theme to Planet Zoo though, none of the pieces we see are part of the original Western set.

Not saying they're not probably going to borrow some pieces from it, they're desert themed pieces after all and there's precedent for that in the game; but we haven't got evidence for it yet.

We won't know for sure until next week though, as that's likely when they'll formally announce the new DLC Pack.

I went back to check and sadly the last two packs broke the week of reveal/week of teasing/week of release pattern; they went back to the older week of reveal/week of release pattern they used to use for scenery packs back in the day. So we're more likely looking at another situation like we had with Zookeepers were there's 14 days between the teaser and the announcement. Going to be a long wait I'm afraid.

---

Anywho, my thoughts:

Arctic: Polar Bear, wooden scenery pieces and I end up liking the Arctic Wolf more visually than the base game one.
South America: Didn't age that well for me, lots of duplicated pieces and lots of flexicolor "failures" in my eyes; but the bamboo pieces and the giant anteater are really cool.
Australia: Koalo and kangaroo are awesome, cassowary introduced the chain dynamics which I still love. Scenery set was alright; but the rods are great pieces.
Aquatic: Controversially this has slowly become one of the packs that I like the least. The faux rocks and branches are great, the rest of the scenery set had some huge misses in terms of lack of more marine themed scenery and some of the animal choices (seal) were a bit off. I do like the giant otter being added, wonderful to see that one in the game.
Southeast Asia: By far one of the more underrated animal packs in my eyes, maybe because it wasn't the ideal one to start with. Everything in this pack deserves its spot in the game, love the proboscis because a good zoo game should certainly also cover the outliers.
Africa: One of the better packs, excellent scenery pieces that further expanded an existing set which I was all for. Meerkat introduced digging in a very creative way, the other animals were also all worthy of being in the game.
North America: Best setup for an animal pack in my eyes, even though it focused on one region each animal could be used in many different areas of your zoos. Well done.
Europe: Didn't care that much for the animals, they're good to have and should be in a zoo game; but the scenery was the big highlight here. One of the better scenery packs.
Wetlands: Well rounded pack once again, together with Grasslands this fleshes out the "common in captivity" zoo roster magnificently, these two are part of my must buy list.
Conservation: It was a nice in between pack that added lots of backstage props; but at the same time it never left a big lasting impression on me. Animal choices were good though.
Twilight: On its own it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the game; together with Europe it is a wonderful addition that pushes that scenery set to the max. Animals in there were awesome too.
Grasslands: Said it before, lots of common in captivity animals; one of the best animal packs.
Tropical: Excellent scenery set, wonderful animals. Up there with the best of the best.
Arid: Animal wise these were all animals that I think should be in the game, but that's the only positive thing I can say about it. I think the roster would have been better if they had branched out to more arid places across the globe.
Oceania: All in all pretty good. Good animals, and a nice addition to the Australia pack. I always suggest people to get those two packs together.
Eurasia: Excellent fur work across the board, great picks as well. Not my highest rated animal pack; but once you have the essentials this is one of the first to go for.
Barnyard: I liked some of the scenery pieces and the sheep are nice.
Zookeeper: Overal, nice animal choices and some really useful pieces. Not the best of the best, but a solid pack on its own.

 

[Birb（｡･ө･｡）]

Arctic: Not bad for a first outing, but it hasn’t held up very well over the years. The polar bear is a zoo staple, and the caribou is another essential. I liked the dall sheep when it came out, but I can’t even remember the last time I used it, and I wouldn’t miss it in today’s caprine-heavy roster. Probably the worst pack scenery-wise, though. The wood set is the best part, but we’ve had better since.
South America: Too themed for me scenery-wise but a great animal selection with three essentials (and hopefully until now if the saki is true) our only NW monkey. The llama is a bit of a dud now that we have the alpaca though. It’s kind of one or the other for me, and I don’t really care which.
Australia: Still a banger and one of my favorites, every pick here was essential (yes, even the dingo, like them or not they’re a very common animal), scenery is hit or miss but when it hits it hits hard - I still constantly use the metal pieces all these years later.
Aquatic: Not quite the star it once was, but it’s still probably the first pack I’d recommend to someone who doesn’t have all the DLCs, as its got the most essential, basic things in one set. I’m a big seal fan, so I’m especially happy we got one in addition to the sea lion instead of just the lion.
Southeast Asia: An okay enough pack. Suffers the issue of focusing too heavily on one group (carnivorans), but they’re all pretty distinct from one another in behavior/niche (I love building for arboreal species, and this pack is full of them). The dhole is a personal favorite of mine.
Africa: Banger animals, okay scenery set. I love the plaster, though.
North America: I like this one a lot. The gator, prairie dog, and sea lion are some of my favorites, and everything here is either iconic, essential, or both. The only thing it’s missing is a bird.
Europe: A perfectly meh pack for me. As someone who loves building older zoos, this scenery set slaps and is such a great add-on for the base game classical set. Animal-wise, though, this is incredibly niche without the uniqueness (two ungulates, two carnivorans) to make up for it. The fallow deer is the only animal I use.
Wetlands: Easily the most diverse animal pack and should have set the standard, it also comes with our only (somehow) crane species.
Conservation: I loved this pack at the time it came out, but now that the hype has died down it’s alright. Pretty solid, but there’s nothing here I couldn’t play without (aside from its incredible plant set - saltwort, my beloved). I do love the backstage props, though - especially the air conditioning set. Having all of the habitat spots be mammals and half of them ungulates is kinda meh, but at least they were decent ones this time around.
Twilight: A guilty pleasure pack for me. Didn’t care for it at first, but I’ve warmed up to it. Some great stone and wood sets once you look past the giant mushrooms and gargoyles, and the wom/bats are great additions. Giving three same-y carnivorans three out of four of the habitat spots was a blunder, but at the very least, the skunk and raccoon are different from the bears/canids/cats we usually end up with and I love building for small animals.
Grasslands: My favorite of the animal packs, the wallaby and emu are among the most essential animals ever for me. Its only real blunder is tripling down on carnivorans (albeit the maned wolf and hyena are personal favorites of mine), but it uses the rest of its spots exceptionally well.
Tropical: Solid little pack. Nothing that wows me, but nothing that disappoints me either, just a nice little booster with some great plants.
Arid: I bought this pack just for a porcupine and a better camel model. Such a woefully un-diverse mess of a pack with a theme that could have been so good even if it stuck with the Palearctic/Afrotropics (all mammals and all but two non-ungulates, seriously?). I struggle to say I don’t like any pack as they all add something useful to the game and I truly do enjoy them all in some way, but if I had to choose one as the worst, this would be it. I know some of this pack's fans can be very defensive, so I will say there's nothing I'd call a bad addition here at least, and I'm happy it made ungulate fans happy.
Oceania: My favorite, the Tassie and kiwi are two incredibly unique essentials that are unlike anything else in the game, and the penguin is another favorite of mine that I’d also consider essential. Surprisingly, it was among the most diverse for a pack with only four habitat animals. I guess that’s what can happen when Frontier is forced into a region with no native ungulates or carnivorans left. One of the best plant sets in the game, too.
Eurasia: I love the swan. Everything else ranges from “meh” to “oh god why?”, definitely one of the weaker packs for me, but I can see its usefulness for European builders.
Barnyard: Good idea, so-so execution. A lot of poor breed choices, and could use one or two fewer ungulates, but the fact that we can build farm areas at all now makes me still like it.
Zookeeper's: The baboon and tortoise are great, and the dik-dik is one of the few times I’ve actually enjoyed an ungulate addition lately. Everything else isn’t bad, but it is just kind of okay to me. Lots of wasted potential for such a broad theme.
Whatever this new pack is: I can’t fully judge until I actually play with it, but it’s kind of a middle-of-the-road animal pack so far, I think the next two slots are going to make or break it (if one of them is taken up by another random ungulate or a non-coati carnivoran I'm gonna be very disappointed but not surprised). I do adore that we’re getting more than one bird, though, and a little boost for the woefully underrepresented Latin America. It’s already better than Arid, Eurasia, Barnyard, and SEA to me for not having every non-ungulate/carnivoran group fight for one habitat spot lol.

 

[Marvinb]

Im just gonna copy my post from the "lets rank all the dlcs" thread in here because i pretty much mention what i like (and dont like) about every pack. Theyre not ordered by release date but instead most to least favorite, so i might have to jump around lol

1. Tropical: A surprisingly versatile scenery set with alot of cool pieces, the wall set especially is god tier. I was so happy to get leaves that arent so offensively orange, and they went into every single build since. The animal roster is pretty solid, but the exclusion of a monkey was a crime and ill die on that hill.
2. Europe: The animals we get here are really nice and the first real animals europe got at all which is crazy. But what puts this pack on the first place is the scenery, from the great wall set, to all the small building and decoration pieces, but my absolute favorites are the small faux pebbles and the decals. Also the fact that Frontier somehow managed to round up alot of different culutral styles of europe in a single pack is impressive. All that makes the Europe Pack the peak scenery set imo
3. Twilight: This is a pack i did a complete 180 on, i lowkey hated it at first but now its among my favorites. The raccoon, and to a lesser degree the skunk are quintessential zoo animals from NA for me and im really happy we got them here. The bats are ofc really cool and different to anything we had before.
   After you put the halloween stuff in the garbage the pack has a very surprisingly versatile bunch of pieces. The wall set, wooden beams and stones are especially great.
4. Conservation: This one came is also pretty cool, i especially like the focus on backstage stuff, which we were desperately missing before. The overall bright and colorfull Recycle/Reneable theme of the pack is pretty cool and fits PZ like a glove. The wallset is nice to have but nothing super versatile imo. If this pack had a banger animal roster it would probably be number one. The oryx, horse and leopard are pretty cool, but nothing that would keep me up a night if i didnt had them. The siamang were definetly the highlight of the roster for me, but the inclusion of the much better (imo) lar gibbon made them a little redundant for me.
5. Africa: Probably one of my alltime favorite animal rosters, they are all bangers. An african rhino was desperately needed, the meerkat and a smaller, warm weather penguin are absolute zoo essentials and both are among my most used animals ever. The fox is the weakest of the habitat animals for me, but still great to have. The scenery is that amazing but there are some nice pieces here and there
6. Wetlands: Nice selection of animals, also a great diversity. Good pack to have.
7. Grasslands: My favorite of the animal packs. Emu and wallaby provide ur basic australia needs, the hyena and wildebeest are almost replacements for their not so great looking base game counterparts, the armadillo is something really different and the other 2 are also nice to have
8. Eurasia: Nice booster pack for this region. The swan is one of the best and most usefull additions they ever made and i enjoy most of the rest aswell.
9. North America: The NA pack has some of my favorites in the sea lion, beaver and prairie dog, but the rest i have rarely used if ever. Which makes it the animal pack that has the highest highs and the lowest lows for me personally.
10. Aquatic: This one is weird. It used to be my favorite but has sinced fallen from grace. Every animal now has a "replacement" that i like more (Sealion,African penguin, Spec, ASCO). The faux rocks are still top notch tho and the wall set is also pretty nice. Not much to say otherwise.
11. Barnyard: I love that we got a petting zoo pack and the pieces are really nice, but the animal/breed choices were pretty odd at times and its what holds this alot lower than where it could have been . If it had a dwarf goat and kunekune/pot belly instead and a duck and/or rabbit in there somewhere it could have easily been in the top 5, but the way it turned out its only a middle of the road pack.
12. Zookeeper: Taken for face value this a a decent pack, still cant compete with wetlands or grasslands for me.
13. Oceania: Nice selection of small critters, which i always enjoy. The devil, qoukka and kiwi are great, but the penguin and bat are pretty meh. There is a bunch of nice decor stuff in here, but the wall set is somthing that i cant really find a use for.
14. South America: The bambo is still pretty usefull, but otherwise this scenery isnt super amazing imo. The animals are nice and provide a good base for SA.
15. SEA: Neat animals, especially now that the tapir as been reworked and the leopard has been fixed, and they do a great job of fleshing out the region. But there isnt anything here that i deem absolutely necessary to have, the only exception is ironicly enough the proboscis monkey. But thats more due the otherwise 100% lack of another large bodied, tailed monkey than the actual species.
16. Australia: Was really cool at the time since Australia was so lacking but especially since Grasslands the pack lost alot relevancy for me. There are some nice pieces to be found here and there, but nothing that you cant find an alternative for.
17. Arid: For me personally this is a pack that could have easily been my favorite animal pack ever, but the amount of missed potential is huge. The porcupine is ofcourse amazing but its the only animal in this pack that i actively wanted.
18. Arctic: I mean yeah this one really isnt great imo. It lacks an exhibit animal and another of the remaining 4 is pretty much just a recolor. The sheep is neat but idk when im ever gonna use it over the ibex and the newly arrived takin. The polar bear and reindeer are the absolute minimum you need for a artic section, so thats nice i guess.
    The scenery really suffers from the fact that a large portion of it is taken up by christmas stuff and the rest got outclassed by other wood pieces over the years.
    Man poor Arctic Pack, im trying to find something that i enjoy about its but man, the DLCs really werent off to a great start with this one.

 

[leehonglocal]

Whenever there's another pack, I'll edit my old post that is if I can remember. And I hardly included Deluxe and Anniversary ones.