Det finns många intressanta förbättringar och nyheter planerade till Frontier Developments kommande Planet Zoo 2, inte minst när det gäller grafiken, olika kvalitetsförbättringar och införandet av vattenlevande djur och fågelarter. Men ett annat område som fått stort fokus är naturvård, där Frontier kunnat skapa ett system som ligger närmare studions ursprungliga vision, men som man aldrig riktigt lyckades förverkliga i det första spelet.
Vi fick möjlighet att prata med spelets skapare Gareth Hughes i en längre videointervju, som du kan se i sin helhet nedan. Under intervjun berörde vi naturvårdsaspekten, där Hughes förklarade varför den är viktig att ha med i spelet:
"Well, I like to think that Planet Zoo and now Planet Zoo 2, primarily entertains, but also helps educate just a little bit. Having things like the Zoopedia in the game where people can find out a lot of detail about the animals, where they live in the world, and the ecosystems that they like and the species that they live alongside. I think that aspect of being able to give our audience that information is really cool.
And for me, the wildlife reserves are really an extension of that core theme that already existed in Planet Zoo. We never really had the chance in that game to fully manifest it into a real gameplay experience. Obviously, there's the welfare within the zoos and we're maintaining and building upon that. But the wildlife reserves offer a completely new experience for the player in terms of how they see conservation working in the real world and how it works in game.
So, as an example, these wildlife reserves are not just about releasing animals. They're about creating a real natural home and habitat for those animals to live in. So there's the rewilding, the restoration aspects of the environment that then allows the release to wild of those animals from your zoos. And I think, again, helping people connect the dots around conservation and ecology about how these intricate webs work between animals and the environment is, well, for me, I find it really, really interesting. And we want to kind of share that passion and being able to deliver it in this beautiful looking package of wildlife reserves in the game, I think it's amazing."
Vi frågade även Hughes om hur Frontier går tillväga när de väljer områden för naturvårdsprojekt och vilka faktorer som avgör om en plats lämpar sig för återförvildning i spelet. Ett bekräftat exempel är Great Rift Basin i Afrika:
"So I guess we look at it from several different aspects. One is, you know, to make these work, we kind of need enough animals that can cohabit together. So we're looking at, you know, when we're identifying an area that would make a good wildlife reserve for us in Planet Zoo 2, it needs to be able to support a wide variety of different animals. Really, we want to be able to release aquatics, avian, and terrestrial animals together into those areas. So, you know, that's one filter, if you like, of how we choose. The other is looking around at real world conservation projects and trying to mirror some of those in game so that people can have that 'oh, yeah, I've seen this on the TV', right, in that amazing documentary that I saw recently. I can kind of recreate some of that. So, yeah, I think those two things really are what's driving our choices."
