Planet Zoo will soon receive a new DLC and the clue's in the title: the Aquatic Pack adds "five iconic water-dwelling animals," a phrase that's kept me amused for longer than it should have, as well as a bunch of appropriately themed scenery, foliage and zoo parts.
The main question I had about this Aquatic DLC was whether I could make jokes about Penguin biscuits, and it turns out that Americans don't have them so no. The biscuit scene in America is, and always has been, the real joke.
Back to marine life, the animals included are the diamondback terrapin, giant otter, Cuvier's dwarf caiman, the grey seal, and the king penguin. The press release describes them respectively as 'wonderful', 'charming', 'beautiful', 'brilliant' and 'adventurous', as if these species need a bit of positive self-reinforcement to feel good about themselves. Also, these king penguins are stuck in a zoo, so maybe it'd be better for their mental health to be reclusive rather than adventurous. But I'm no zoo monger.
Though I do like sharks. I was once watching a documentary about sharks which described the seals they were hunting as 'Phoca McNuggets', phoca being the genus, and ever since that mental image I've never been able to respect seals in general. Give me the option to stick a great white in the tank, Frontier, and none of that 'they don't survive in captivity' jibber-jabber: this is an imaginary zoo. Let's get creative.
The DLC costs £8 / $10 and as well as the new animals and 170 scenery pieces includes a scenario to teach you the basics. You take over a zoo set around a drained riverbed, which will apparently test your skills "with its tight space restrictions."
Alongside the paid DLC will be a bunch of content for all players, most notably the introduction of animal talks: you can now schedule a talk from a new staff type called an educator, and choose the species they talk about. This is not quite what it might sound like: 'educating' in-game visitors is their purpose, I'm not sure they'll be delivering lectures to players. The Aquatic Pack and those iconic water-dwelling animals launch on December 8.
