Seven years of Zoo 2: Animal Park: Longevity, season passes, and the importance of new content

German games developer Upjers celebrated the seventh anniversary of mobile and browser game Zoo 2: Animal Park on March 27th, 2025.

As the name implies, the title is a zoo-themed management sim, putting players in the shoes of a park director and tasking them with caring for many different species: from tigers to pandas to flamingos.

Much has changed since Zoo 2: Animal Park’s 2018 launch, so more than 40 million installs and over 400 animal species later, we spoke with the game’s project manager Bernd Willuhn to learn exactly how Zoo 2 has developed over time, how it's ensured such longevity and the measures the game has taken to remain accessible to newcomers.

PocketGamer.biz: Zoo 2: Animal Park recently celebrated its seventh anniversary. Has the game changed dramatically since its 2018 launch?

Bernd Willuhn: The content of Zoo 2: Animal Park has grown steadily since its launch, with many new features and animals being added over the years. Our zoo game now comprises over 400 animals.

Also, there are not only animal enclosures, but entire special regions, such as a terrarium house, aquarium house and many more.

With the games industry evolving so rapidly, what are some of the biggest changes you've had to make to Zoo 2 to keep it relevant on mobile?

From the very beginning, we have kept an eye on market development and its technologies. So over the years there have always been small, and therefore countless, optimisations to keep Zoo 2: Animal Park up to date in terms of both performance and gaming experience.

Have there been any unexpected development challenges?

The now very large scope of game content is a constant challenge that keeps us on our toes. Our aim is to give every new user quick and uncomplicated game access.

That's why we deliberately avoid the requirement to download gigabytes of data at the very first game start and instead execute this dynamically as the game progresses, corresponding to what is actually needed.

Are there any unique challenges to operating a game that's on both mobile and PC?

With Zoo 2: Animal Park we have done a very good job of making it accessible to players on both platform types. Our user interface is responsive and adapts very well to the respective platform.

Therefore we have been able to overcome one of the biggest hurdles that can cause problems for developers.

What our users particularly appreciate is the ability to link their game accounts to our Upjers portal. This means they don't have to choose between the utilisation of mobile devices and PC, but can log into their zoo account everywhere with the same login data.

How do you balance making changes to keep the game fresh without ostracising longtime players?

On the one hand, we make sure that new features are well distributed across the range of levels. On the other hand, our events are achievable for every gamer with diligence. This ensures that there is little frustration potential for long-term users. We also keep coming up with new ideas.

We currently have a major new feature at the ready, which will be released at the end of May. Players will be able to take full care of the health and welfare of numerous animals. However, we can't reveal any more at this point in time...

What's your approach to live ops? How big is the team handling this?

Thanks to our two-week update cycle, we can quickly bring innovations and important bug fixes into our game. This is only possible with an experienced and well-coordinated team. The team size varies according to the upcoming features.

Every staff member, from support to graphics and marketing to development, makes a decisive contribution to the game’s success.

And what sort of events did you run for the seventh anniversary?

We had a number of different events to mark this anniversary and launched a brand-new feature: a season pass. Every 70 days, players have the opportunity to take part in an additional challenge in which they can solve animal quizzes and unlock extra rewards level by level. A high game level is not required for this.

Do you try to do something unique each year or is there a formula fans have come to expect?

It's a good mix of both. Over the years, our players have come to expect a certain rhythm of events, which we try to keep to as far as possible. However, with new features, we always provide surprises.

For example, our Noctarium is a unique feature in Zoo 2 that we haven't seen in any other casual zoo game. Our team has also spared no effort to incorporate an individual light control system into the Noctarium. Our gaming community really appreciates such details.

Are there any other steps you've taken to ensure Zoo 2's longevity?

As already mentioned, continuous optimisation is our way of ensuring longevity. We are very open to ideas from our community. These are collected via Discord and our forum and regularly incorporated into new content plans.

Naturally, not everything can be implemented the way our players wish for, however we have already incorporated many animal and feature requests over the years.

Are there any KPIs like downloads, revenue milestones or DAUs you can share?

We have already had way more than 40 million downloads on all platforms and have a very high rate of daily active gamers.

Finally, has Zoo 2 taught you any lessons applicable to your other mobile games, or vice versa?

Gamers appreciate consistency and good quality content. This is something we also always want to provide to our users in future games. Very important advice: without new content, an online game won't become a perennial favourite.

That's why we put a lot of time and effort into creating additional content.