Hi everyone,

We’d like to take a moment to update you all on what’s happening at Frontier with regards to COVID-19, and what you can expect from us in the foreseeable future.

In order to safeguard the health and safety of all Frontier employees, we are implementing a work from home policy across the studio.

Frontier’s games and channels bring joy to the community, and we are all united in our love of these fantastic worlds and the positive impact they produce; this is why we are working hard to avoid any disruption and will do our very best to keep you updated and entertained throughout this challenging time.

Our games will continue to be supported (including online functionality), and at the moment we do not anticipate any major changes to our plans across all titles. However, with the situation changing daily, we will keep you informed and appreciate your patience and understanding as we continue to bring the best gaming experiences to our players. Our Communications team will continue to be active across our channels, including forums, Reddit, Discord, and social media; our Customer Support team will continue to offer help and support through our dedicated support channels, and game teams will continue their work on future updates and releases.

As an added precaution, we are restricting work-related travel for the time being, which means we are not attending any events at the current time.

Our hearts and minds are with you and your family; we will continue to monitor the global situation and will adjust our operations as necessary, and keep you posted.

Please stay safe and healthy, and thank you for your ongoing patience and support.

Take care,

The Frontier team.

Hayo fellow Zookeepers!

Thank you for all of your support and feedback following Update 1.1.5 - we have now launched Update 1.1.6. This minor update focuses on guests and staff.

Misc

• Issue Tracker - Fixed an issue where guests with no desire to spend money were queuing for shops, especially when leaving the zoo. Guests without desire to spend money will now do other things or leave the zoo without visiting shops en-route.
  
• Issue Tracker - Updated guest logic so guests with no cash will be more likely to visit an ATM.
  
• Issue Tracker - Fixed an issue where occasionally staff would get stuck outside a staff building.

Stability

• Further crash and stability fixes.

Please continue to provide us with your feedback and Issue Tracker reports. If you make a forum post about a bug, please link to your Issue Tracker support so your fellow community members can help confirm the issue.

Hayo Zookeepers!

We hope you've seen a lot of benefits due to Update 1.1.4. Did you check out the MontseC cheat? Send us all your cute screenshots!

Thanks to all of your feedback, we have released Update 1.1.5. Here are the update notes:

Misc

• Issue Tracker - Fixed an issue when running the game at 5x speed, staff get alerts for not finding a staff room despite many that are free.
  
• Issue Tracker - Fixed a rare crash when placing habitat gates.
  
• Fixed an issue where guests may re-spawn to zoo entrance when editing distant paths.

Stability

• Further crash and stability fixes.

Please continue to post any pesky bugs you come across on our Issue Tracker! If you make a forum post about a bug, please remember to link your Issue Tracker report so other people can contribute.

Hayo Zookeepers!

Thank you for all of your Issue Tracker reports over the last couple of months, we have just released a general update which should fix some of the more generic issues members of our community have reported to us.


Animals

• Animals that have been boxed by the game will now be automatically unboxed, when safe!
  
• Fixes to Polar Bear jump to swim animations.
  
• Replaced references to Arctic continent with the appropriate North America and European tags and filters. This means Arctic animals have suitable plants if you want them!
  
• Fixed jumping into water from climbing frames.
  
• Zoopedia text updates based on your feedback - thank you for bringing these to our attention!

New Content

• Added a free avatar costume: Ice Cream Hat. Be careful, it might melt!

Management

• Refunds have been temporarily disabled while we review the overall system - thanks to all of the feedback you have given us!

Staff

• Vets, Mechanics, and Keepers now have unique inspection points inside the habitat gate to help prevent them from standing on top of each other.
  
• Fixed an issue where if a player deletes a habitat where food inside the habitat is on the ground, food will not degrade completely and would not be cleaned by Staff.

Guests

• Guests' needs now decrease slower while in shop queues to match Transport Ride queues.
  
• Guests now move between nearby shops based on queue length!
  
• Fixed an issue where guests departing or going to the next station of a Transport Ride opened their umbrellas early.

UI

• Replaced 'Uses last month' with 'Uses in last 12 months' for all habitat objects (feeders, water bowls, enrichment) info panels.
  
• Habitat cleanliness alert now opens habitat cleanliness Heat Map rather than water cleanliness.
  
• Fixed text error in high alert warning with special characters.
  
• Path icons now display a price in the main browser.
  
• Added 'No suitable species' feedback message to the feeding station info panel.
  
• Fixed duplicating scenery and buildings using duplicate and advanced move.
  
• Fixed shop inventory selling items that have been toggled off.
  
• Fixed albino animals displaying the wrong non-albino icons when being Released to the Wild.
  
• Fixed albino adult male and juvenile Zebras showing wrong thumbnail icon.

Sandbox Mode

• Fixed an issue where toggling off welfare in Sandbox Mode was still spawning protesters.

Challenge & Franchise Mode

• Fixed an issue where players were not receiving their rewards from Community Challenges.

Misc

• [As highlighted via the Issue Tracker] Fixed an issue where if the Ice Block Wall Slope 4m is selected in the placement tool there will be a second piece attached to the asset while being placed.
  
• [As highlighted via the Issue Tracker] Fixed an issue where the Zoopedia UI fails to open if opened through the Animal UI with any other "Top Left" UI open.
  
• [As highlighted via the Issue Tracker] Fixed a bug that prevented Vets from collecting some animals from the trade centre.
  
• Fixed a rare crash when adjusting Transport Ride min/max delays.
  
• Improved performance when using the shape terrain tools.

Stability

• Further crash and stability fixes.

Localisation

• Various localisation fixes.

Please continue to report any bugs you have come across on our Issue Tracker so we can look into the issue.

Hello Zookeepers!

Thank you for all of your feedback and support since our last update. We have now released update 1.1.3 which includes a range of fixes for your zoos.

Here are the update notes:

• Fixed an issue where some players loading into their franchise zoo would be immediately forced back to the front end menu.
  
• Fixed an issue with an infinite loading screen in franchise mode for some players.
  
• Fixed a crash when loading some large zoos from Steam workshop.
  
• Fixed an issue where guests would not use transport rides.
  
• General stability fixes.

Please continue to report any issues you encounter on our Issue Tracker and we'll keep you up to date on further news or updates!

Hey Zookeepers!

We're back from our festive break and ready to kick off 2020 with our first Planet Zoo update!

Thanks for all of your fantastic support, feedback and patience as we've continued to update Planet Zoo. We've now released Update 1.1.2, which contains a range of fixes.

Here are the update notes for 1.1.2:

• Fixed a material streaming issue where objects would load in blurred.
  
• Fixed a bug where thousands of dung would crash the physics system on loading zoos.
  
• Fixed a crash on load of a zoo where the audio system would run out of memory.
  
• Fixed Cheetah female and Polar Bear being able to jump into water.
  
• Fixed a number of crashes due to crowd navigation.
  
• Fixed check boxes for object placement settings responding to keyboard shortcuts.
  
• Fixed guests getting trapped by path editing near them.
  
• Fixed guests getting stuck on load.
  
• Fixed various crowd related crashes.
  
• Fixed block of frozen fruit enrichment item unlocking via Galapagos or Giant Tortoise research.
  
• Fixed inspectors not visiting zoos.
  
• Fixed Mechanics not repairing vandalised items.
  
• Improved loading times of zoos with lots of climbable objects.
  
• Fixed big cats being able to climb tall walls to escape.
  
• Fixed clicking a time line notification about breeding animals.
  
• Various localisation and text fixes.
  
• Fixed a crash when using object selection shortcuts in the animal info pop up.
  
• Fixed an issue where cancelling an animal move request at a specific time could cause issues.
  
• General bug fixes.

Please continue to send us feedback and reports on the Issue Tracker so we can continue to improve our community's experience.

Hayo Zookeepers!

Thanks for all of your super helpful regarding after the launch of the Arctic Pack and free Update 1.1.0. We appreciate hearing all the feedback from the community; please continue to share your feedback with us and make reports on the Issue Tracker.

Here's the update notes for Update 1.1.1:

This update contains many more bug fixes and updates.
Animals

• Fixed an issue with boxing animals that are jumping.
  
• Mitigated a number of issues with animals being flagged as escaped when inside a habitat.
• Some issues still exist and we continue to investigate.
  
• Reduced habitat welfare size for polar bears.
  
  • Thanks for the feedback on the habitat and welfare requirements for the Polar Bears. We will be amending the requirements to 1/2 of their original size. Whilst we strongly believe in the reasons behind the original numbers, we completely understand that some players, in particular our creative builders, would face too many challenges in keeping these amazing animals happy in their zoos. The new numbers will be both more in line with other large animals in Planet Zoo, and in keeping with the overall conservation message of Planet Zoo - whilst also maintaining a gameplay challenge for those who don't want it to feel too easy to run a successful zoo.
    In terms of the original numbers, we did a lot of research into Polar Bear habitats - they are majestic animals that require a wide snowy area to roam, and if they have anything less, they tend to display stress behaviours and in general do not cope well with being in zoos. Planet Zoo is at its core about animal welfare, so we felt giving the Polar Bear the high space and water requirements it so desperately needs to thrive, was in keeping with the game's main message.

New Content

• Added missing arctic theme tag to 8 items to enable them to be shown by the scenery filter.
  • Items:
    • Icicles 4m - 01
      
    • Icicles 4m - 02
      
    • Icicles Large - 01
      
    • Icicles Medium - 01
      
    • Icicles Small - 01
      
    • Icicles Small - 02
      
    • Icicles Small - 03
      
    • Roof Trim - 2m

Staff

• Fixed staff being stuck on staff path.
  
• Fixed an issue with staff room perks being lost after exiting and reloading a save.

Management

• Temporarily turning off refunds for animal escapes.

UI

• Fixed issue with the Work Zone UI contents list being greyed out.
  
• Added missing icons to the Arctic research levels.
  
• Fixed pay off loan button; you only pay off the outstanding amount, not the outstanding amount AND its future interest.
  
• Adjusted the wording of the "Alert Settings" in the "Interface" options

Career Mode

• Fixed a crash when starting Scenario 3 in Challenge or Sandbox modes.

Stability

• Further crash and stability fixes.

Localisation

• Various localisation fixes.

Hello Zookeepers!

There's snow need to wait any longer! We're absolutely thrilled to announce that Update 1.1.0 and Planet Zoo: Arctic Pack are live now!



Join Bernie Goodwin and Nancy Jones on an adventure that will send chills down your spine as you face your toughest challenges yet. You'll need to use all the skills you've learnt so far in two new Scenarios that will take you to Norway and Mexico, and ensure the animals thrive in these landscapes. You get to meet four new animals: the Polar Bear, Reindeer, Dall Sheep and Arctic Wolf - which all come with their own needs. You'll need to learn what these four iconic species require and enjoy from their Zoopedia entries, which will help you learn how to keep your animals happy.

We'll give you all the tools you need - there are over 200 new building, scenery, and foliage pieces included in the Arctic Pack, all to help you build a true winter wonderland.

Alongside the Arctic Pack, we have now released free Update 1.1.0, which includes highly requested community features such as Slow Age Rating, improved social behaviours and management updates, plus more.

Read the full Update Notes for both the Arctic Pack and Update 1.1.0 below:

UPDATE NOTES

Animals

• Slow animal aging - We have added a slider in the Gameplay section of the Options menu, where you are able to alter the rate at which your animals age; you can use this to age them up to 5 times slower. This will also affect the rate at which they mature, how long they gestate for, the amount of time between mating attempts, and how long it takes for their star rating to increase. Animals will still display all of their other behaviours at the same rate as they do now. Slowing down everything to do with the animals should also reduce the rate at which things happen in your zoo, giving you fewer animal births and deaths to deal with. This setting will be available in all modes: Career, Sandbox, Franchise and Challenge. Upon using the slider, the aging of your animals will become disconnected from the in-game years that pass. This is deliberate, not a bug.
  This can be set on the front end, which will become the default for any new zoo you start after that point. Any existing zoos will require you to load the save and go into the options to alter it for that zoo.
  
• We have introduced pack structures specific to canines - this applies to Timber Wolves and African Wild Dogs. Alphas are stable within a pack structure, and members won't normally fight unless they are overcrowded. All juveniles will be added to the pack structures. All pack members will be listed in the animal UI.
  
• Added new social interactions to the red ruffed and ring tailed lemurs.
  
• Fixed issue which could lead to animals ignoring feeding and watering stations until they are replaced.
  
• Further fixes for animals jumping through barriers.
  
• Further improvements to climbing.
  
• The Indian Peafowl will now display it's tail feathers again.

New Content

• Aurora effect for tundra biome - requires graphic settings to high or above.
  
• Festive spruce foliage assets.
  
• Ice and Snow rock sets.
  
• Ice statues and icicle scenery assets.
  
• Wooden & frosted ice path.
  
• Enrichment items:
  
  • Large Snow Ball
    
  • Small Ice Ball
    
  • Snowman Skittle
    
  • Gift Box
• Avatar ice cream costume

Management

• A new crime management page has been added to the Zoo Overview management screen - this tab will display and locate vandalised items in your zoo.
  
• Refunds have been modified, and now have a breakdown of costs in the Zoo finance screen. If a guest has spent less than half of their allotted time in the zoo before going home due to low happiness, they will receive a refund. If an animal escapes and the guest flees, they will receive a refund that's proportional to the time they've spent in the zoo. Innocent guests ejected from the park will receive a full refund. Additionally, unhappy guests will not donate as much money to your zoo.

Staff

• Fixed bug causing staff to teleport to the origin of the zoo.
  
• Fixed staff getting stuck on path intersections.
  
• Animal bones will now be cleared from water if the keeper can't reach them.
  
• Fixed mechanics not using alternative workshops when queuing

Guests

• Fixed guests walking on staff paths.
  
• Fixed bug with guest visibility calculations when on transport rides.
  
• Added a visibility override to the following scenery items Classic Fence Copper 01 and Classic Fence Copper 02. Guests will now be able to see through them to view animals
  
• Fixed issue where guests wouldn't use bins when "Going Home".

UI

• News Feed Carousel -We are introducing a News Feed to the Planet Zoo home page, which will update you on any announcements you should be aware of! These will include maintenance information, latest change log notes and news updates.
  
• New notifications to help with bad keeper setup.
  
• Added a new "Important Alert Requires Attention" notification pop-out that appears in the middle of the screen that notifies players when something tremendously negative is affecting their zoo. This can be turned off in the interface menu.
  
• Added a notification that displays when more than one mechanic is attempting to use the workshop, others that cannot fit will queue outside.
  
• Added bad education notification.
  
• Added option to Disable Alerts on a per category basis in the Settings>Interface menu.
  
• New heat maps
  
  • Staff happiness
    
  • Crime
    
  • Animal breeding
    
  • Habitat cleanliness
• Improved the guest negative impact heat map.
  
• Immediate family in the zoo info added to animal info panel.
  
• The radius of effect is now shown when placing heaters and coolers.
  
• Added additional information about keeper feeding to the help menu.
  
• Added new function to allow avatar visitors to be set to Friends Only or disabled entirely via a new drop down entry in the Settings>Game menu.
  
• Added a re-hire staff button to the staff info panel in the way of a "+" button at the top. We will look to develop the UI further in future.
  
• Clicking on the Guest Happiness at the bottom of the main HUD will now open the Guest Happiness Heat Map.
  
• Added a "Remove this plant" button for all unsuitable plant types to the animal info panel.
  
• Improved feedback when adding water.

Career Mode

• Scenario 3 - Improvements made to placing the Vet Surgery and the Shop; now place a building instead of adding a facility to a shell.
  
• Opening hours can be changed in Scenarios 3 through 12.

Challenge & Franchise Mode

• Opening hours can now be changed in Challenge and Franchise Mode.
  
• Added new "No Protesters" challenge.

Sandbox Mode

• When turning off illness in the settings, any illness already present in the zoo will also now be removed.
  
• Added Sandbox toggles for enabling Cash/Conservation Credits (no longer unlimited) and setting Cash/Conservation Credit amount (applies when unlimited Cash/Conservation Credits are turned off).
  
• Add Sandbox toggle option to turn off Vandalism.

Misc

• Fixed issue with lights not turning on when "Power Everything" option is turned on in Sandbox Mode.

Animation

• Various bug fixes and polish.

Audio

• Various bug fixes and polish.

Stability

• Further crash and stability fixes.

Localisation

• Various localisation fixes.

Hayo Zookeepers!

Brrrrr......

Are you ready for an ice-cold adventure in a wintery wonderland? Perhaps you're willing to face a red-hot challenge, in a setting that will prove the most difficult yet... Are you ready to answer Bernie Goodwin's call?



After an incredible year with our Planet Zoo community, we are thrilled to reveal the Planet Zoo: Arctic Pack, coming alongside free Update 1.1.0 on 17 December 2019!

With two new Scenarios, there will be exciting things for you to overcome as a zoo manager. You'll need to brave harsh landscapes: the mountainous Norway set in the Tundra biome, and the arid Mexico, based in the Desert biome. These two zoos come with their own stories and challenges, which you'll need to deal with to ensure animal welfare and park success.

This Pack also features four brand new Arctic animals: the Polar Bear, Reindeer, Arctic Wolf, and Dall Sheep – all four species come with new challenges and specific needs, so be sure to check the Zoopedia for tips on how to keep them happy and healthy.



Cover your park in a blanket of snow, design an ice sculpture, or build your very own Scandinavian village – there are over 200 new building, scenery, and foliage pieces to choose from and get creative with!

The Arctic Pack will be available to purchase on Steam and Frontier Store for £7.99 ($9.99, €9.99). Please note that you'll need to have the Planet Zoo base game in order to download and play this extra content. Update 1.1.0 will be free for all players.
Thanks to our wonderful community for all of your support since our launch! Keep your eyes on our forums and social channels for all the news and announcements about Planet Zoo, and make sure to tune into our livestreams!

Hayo Zookeepers!

It's the most wonderful time of the year, and it's only fitting that we celebrate with our Planet Zoo community! We're pleased to announce that free Update 1.1 is coming to Planet Zoo on 17 December 2019!

Thanks to your feedback, this free update includes a variety of different features; here's a small overview, to show you why they've been implemented and how they may affect your gameplay!



Slow Animal Aging
We've received some feedback regarding the in-game time in Planet Zoo. We'd like to thank you all for giving us your perspective on what speed you'd like to see the animals age, as it has helped us create a solution that we believe everyone will enjoy! Slow Animal Aging is a setting that can be found in the Gameplay section of the Options menu, and you can use it to alter the rate at which your animals age: up to five times slower than normal. This will not only affect aging, but also how quickly the animals mature, how long they gestate for, the amount of time between mating attempts, and how long it takes for their star rating to increase. However, we'd like to highlight that animals will still display all of their other behaviours at the same rate as they do now; this will not be affected by the age setting. Using Slow Animal Aging will slow down the rate things are happening in your zoo, giving you fewer animal births and deaths to deal with. This setting will be available in all modes: Career, Sandbox, Franchise and Challenge. Upon using the slider, the aging of your animals will become disconnected from the in-game years that pass. This is deliberate, not a bug.


Immediate Family on Animal Information Panels
We are introducing immediate animal family information, which you can see by selecting an animal and viewing their social tab, included in their information panel. Through this, you will be able to learn of an animal's parentage, siblings and direct descendants. This should help prevent inbreeding in zoos and keep your animals healthy!


Animal Pack Behaviour
We have introduced pack structures specific to canines - this applies to Timber Wolves and African Wild Dogs. Alphas are stable within a pack structure, and members won't normally fight unless they are overcrowded. All juveniles will be added to the pack structures. All pack members will be listed in the animal UI.


New Heat Maps
We've also created more Heat Maps, which should help you in all aspects of managing your zoo! These Heat Maps involve crime, staff happiness, animal breeding, habitat cleanliness and updates to negative impacts, such as litter and thrown food. These will all be available to you in the Heat Map tab (H), and can help you keep your zoo as prestige as possible.


Improved Social Behaviours
The team have added new social interactions for the Ring-Tailed Lemur and Red Ruffed Lemur, meaning you'll see the Lemurs interact with each other, both adult to adult and adult to juvenile. Make sure your animals have enough space to display their behaviour theatres and are happy in all aspects, and they will be able to perform their social interactions!


News Feed
We are introducing a News Feed to the Planet Zoo home page, which will update you on any announcements you should be aware of! These will include maintenance information and news updates.


Management Updates
We've added new alerts to the game, which will help point out any issues with the setup of your zoo - something we hope will help you better identify what's happening with your parks. A new High Alert will notify players when something that will have a tremendously negative effect on your zoo is happening, such as if an animal escapes or if all Keeper Huts are closed. This High Alert will pop up in the centre of your screen, but can be switched off in the options.

All Alerts can now be switched off on a per category basis; they've been grouped in the options menu.

A new crime management page has been added to the Zoo Overview management screen - this tab will display and locate vandalised items in your zoo.

Refunds have now been modified, and now have a breakdown of costs in the Zoo finance screen. If a guest has spent less than half of their allotted time in the zoo before going home due to low happiness, they will receive a refund. If an animal escapes and the guest flees, they will receive a refund that's proportional to the time they've spent in the zoo. Innocent guests ejected from the park will receive a full refund. Additionally, unhappy guests will not donate as much money to your zoo.



Aurora Borealis
Our team have created a beautiful in-game Aurora Borealis, also known as the Northern Lights, which you can see while in the Tundra biome! Keep your eye on the night sky to see them, as they are truly a sight to behold! We're looking forward to seeing your gorgeous screenshots of this natural phenomenon! However, it is important for us to highlight that this feature will only be available in High-Ultra Graphic settings.


Ice Cream Costume
An Ice Cream Costume is available to all players to dress up their avatars!


More Creativity!
Of course, for all the master builders among us, we're adding a complete ice & snow rock set, enrichment items like a snow ball and a Christmas present, new winter foliage, and ice pathing.

These features will arrive alongside a huge number of gameplay tweaks and bug fixes, which the team have been working hard on in the past few weeks - the full Update Notes will be posted on 17 December when the update goes live. There might be another surprise in store for you as well, so do keep an eye out for any exciting announcements soon.