Planet Zoo 2 Reviews and Release: Out Now — Metacritic 85, Mostly Positive on Steam, Editions, Download Size and PC Specs

Planet Zoo 2 reviews: critics vs Steam players

What the critics scored it

On Metacritic the PC version has a Metascore of 85 from 15 critics. Fourteen of the reviews are positive, one is mixed and none are negative. That is four points above the first Planet Zoo, which Metacritic lists at 81. The PS5 and Xbox pages still read “tbd” because they have too few reviews (one and three), so treat 85 as a PC verdict for now. The scores ran from 100 (Insider Gaming) down to 60 (PC Gamer). IGN and IGN Benelux both gave it 90.

The praise and the complaints are consistent across those reviews. Critics praise the aquariums and aviaries, the new building and pathing tools, and how lifelike the animals are. Where they hold back, it is on the new Wildlife Reserves, which IGN thought could be richer, and on micromanagement, which was the reason for PC Gamer’s 60. None of the critic quotes we read mentioned bugs, and that is the gap the Steam reviews fill.

Why Steam reviews are only Mostly Positive

At about 02:00 UTC Steam’s review counter showed 626 positive and 249 negative reviews across all languages. That is 72%, which Steam labels Mostly Positive. English-language reviews alone came to 316 positive and 158 negative, 67%, which is in Steam’s Mixed band. So which label you see depends on your Steam language setting. To find out why, we read the 60 most helpful negative and 60 most helpful positive English reviews from the launch window and noted what each one complained about.

Planet Zoo 2 player count on launch day

Planet Zoo 2 release date and unlock time

For most of the pre-order period only the PlayStation Store showed the launch hour. When we opened all four listings on 20 September, Steam showed a countdown, Xbox showed only the date 10/13/2026, and Frontier’s help centre gave just the date. The PlayStation Store was the only one with a time: 14:00 UTC. The game unlocked exactly then. The PlayStation Store still lists 2026-10-13T14:00:00Z as the release time.

“The game will be launching at 3PM BST on October 13.”

— Frontier Developments, “Planet Zoo 2 | Release Timing!”, Steam announcement, 9 October 2026

What 14:00 UTC meant where you live

Pre-load and patches

Steam pre-purchasers could pre-load from 3PM BST on 12 October, a day before the unlock. Frontier announced no console pre-load, so on PS5 and Xbox the download started at 14:00 UTC. Pre-loading no longer matters now that the game is out. If you buy a key today, activate it and download as normal: 27.9 GB on Xbox Series X|S, or plan for 50 GB free on a PC SSD. No day-one patch or hotfix had been announced by the morning of 14 October, so what you download is the launch build.

Physical discs arrive 20 October

Most release-date pages miss this, and it comes straight from Frontier’s own FAQ: the physical disc editions did not launch on day one. They arrive a week later, on Tuesday 20 October, for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S at retail. If you pre-ordered a boxed copy, you still have that week to wait. The digital Standard Edition costs the same $49.99, so switching only costs you a cancellation.

“Yes! We’re excited to reveal that physical disc editions of Planet Zoo 2 will launch on Tuesday 20 October. You can pre-order on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S at all major retailers.”

— Frontier Developments, Planet Zoo 2 help centre, “Will there be a physical edition of Planet Zoo 2?”

Planet Zoo 2 editions and price

Frontier lists the same two SRPs everywhere: £39.99 / $49.99 / €49.99 for the Standard Edition and £54.99 / $64.99 / €64.99 for the Deluxe. We saw exactly those prices on Steam, the PlayStation Store and Xbox on 20 September. When we checked again on 14 October, the morning after launch, all three US stores still charged $49.99 and $64.99 with no launch discount. It is one of the rare launches with real price parity across stores. In the UK the gap is £15 against a lower base price, so the Deluxe costs slightly less there relative to the base game than it does in dollars or euros.

There is no Collector’s Edition, no Ultimate Edition, no season pass and no paid early-access window. Several recent simulation games sold a three-day head start with the expensive edition; this one did not. Both editions unlocked at the same moment, so the Deluxe comes down to one question: are six animals and some signs worth $15?

The six Deluxe Edition animals, finally named

On 20 September every storefront described the Deluxe Upgrade Pack in the same eleven words — “6 animal species from across the globe” — and none said which six. The storefront text still does not, but Frontier’s own Zoopedia now does. It has a Content Pack filter, and when we set it to Deluxe on 13 October it returned exactly six animals, each carrying a Deluxe badge.

The pre-order bonus is in both editions

The Bonus Content Pack — an exclusive Toucan Eat Shop and signage, three unique animal donation bins, and a Tiger Photo Stand-In Wall — was granted at launch to everyone who pre-ordered, on either edition. Xbox makes this unusually legible: its compare-editions panel lists the Bonus Content Pack as an included add-on under both the $49.99 and the $64.99 box. You did not have to buy up to get it.

Planet Zoo 2 system requirements and download size

Frontier does something most publishers do not: it says what the numbers buy you. The minimum spec is rated for above 30 FPS on Medium settings, the recommended for 30 FPS on High — both on “a well built up zoo”, which is the honest caveat, because a management sim gets heavier as your zoo grows and that cost lands on the CPU rather than the GPU. Frontier spells this out on the help page: if changing graphics settings does not move your frame rate, you are CPU-bound, and on a laptop the fix is cooling, not a lower preset.

Two details in that table deserve more attention than they usually get. The first is that RAM does not move between the tiers — 16 GB is both the floor and the ceiling Frontier tested against, so upgrading memory past 16 GB is not what will help you. The second is the SSD line: it is a recommendation at minimum spec and a hard requirement at recommended spec, which is Frontier saying quietly that a mechanical drive will hurt. There is also a Windows 10 warning on the official page — Microsoft has ended support for it, so Frontier will not guarantee ongoing compatibility even though the game launches supporting it.

Planet Zoo 2 download size by platform

The interesting number is the gap. The Xbox console package is about 18 GB smaller than the Windows one from the same Play Anywhere listing, which is the usual pattern of PC builds shipping higher-resolution assets. It also means the Windows package is bigger than the 40 GB Frontier lists as the storage requirement — on a PC, leave yourself at least 50 GB free on the SSD before you start the download.

Check your own PC in about thirty seconds

Before you pre-order anything, compare your actual hardware against that table. On Windows you do not need a benchmarking tool for this — press Win+R, then run:

dxdiag

The System tab gives you your processor and installed memory; the Display tab gives you the GPU and its dedicated video memory. Compare the VRAM figure in particular, because Frontier’s minimum is stated as an RTX 2060 with 6 GB and the recommended as an RTX 3070 with 8 GB — the VRAM number, not the model name, is what a card with the same name but less memory will fail on. If the answer is “nowhere near”, skip to the cloud option below rather than buying a key you cannot run.

Consoles, Game Pass, Switch and cloud

The Xbox Play Anywhere tag is the most consequential line in that table and almost nobody mentions it. Buying Planet Zoo 2 through the Microsoft Store gets you the Xbox Series X|S build and the Windows PC build from a single purchase, with saves that follow you between them. If you own both an Xbox and a PC that can run it, that is effectively two copies for $49.99 — and it is the one genuine reason to prefer a storefront over a Steam key.

What Frontier has explicitly ruled out

• Multiplayer. There is none. You can share and download parks and blueprints through the in-game workshop — across platforms — but you cannot build alongside another player.
• Previous-generation consoles. No PS4, no Xbox One, and no plans for either.
• Nintendo. Neither the Switch nor the Switch 2 is planned.
• macOS. No plans for a Mac build.
• Cetaceans. Dolphins, whales and porpoises are deliberately absent, and Frontier explains why: it is following how the conservation community handles re-wilding programmes for those species.
• Always-online. Once downloaded, Planet Zoo 2 plays offline; you only need a connection for the workshop.

If you already own the first Planet Zoo

Frontier has said nothing about Planet Zoo DLC carrying across, and we would not assume it does. Asked about future Planet Zoo 2 DLC, its FAQ says only that the team is “fully focused on launch” — the two games are built on different foundations and the sequel introduces entire animal categories the first one never had. What Frontier has confirmed is that the original stays supported by its customer-support team while the development team moves on to the sequel. In practice that means the first game and its packs remain a live, playable library rather than something being retired in October.

Planet Zoo 2 itself has now reached our store. When we checked on 13 October, both the Planet Zoo 2 Steam key and the Planet Zoo 2: Deluxe Edition Steam key were in stock with instant delivery and a 13 October release date. They are Steam keys, so they are for PC only — on PS5 or Xbox, buy on the console store. If you are activating a key, our guide to activating a game on Steam with a product key covers the redemption side, and how Steam refunds work is worth reading before any pre-purchase, because the two-hour playtime rule behaves differently on a game you bought before it existed.

Which platform to buy it on

For most people the answer is the machine you already own, because price parity removes the usual reason to shop around. Three things break the tie. If you have an Xbox and a capable PC, buy on the Microsoft Store and take the Play Anywhere copy. If your PC is below the minimum spec, GeForce NOW is Frontier’s own named route rather than a workaround. And if you build with a mouse on a console, both Xbox and Frontier confirm keyboard-and-mouse support — the console version adds a complexity meter that caps how far you can push a build, which is the real difference between platforms, not the input device.

• Buy now if you mainly build in Sandbox and want the aquariums, aviaries and new path tools, which both critics and positive Steam reviews praise.
• Buy now on PC if you are happy to rely on Steam’s two-hour, 14-day refund window as a safety net while the first patches arrive.
• Wait for the first patch if Franchise mode is how you play: it is the mode Steam reviewers most often call broken at launch.
• Wait if your PC is near the minimum spec. Frontier rates it for 30 FPS on a well-built-up zoo, and performance complaints are already in the reviews.
• Wait until 20 October if you want a boxed copy, or switch to digital, which costs the same $49.99.

Sources & how we checked this