Scrubland

Lore & Background

In the Planet Zoo world, Scrubland is not a single location but a recurring ecological zone—the kind of terrain you'd find stretching between a riverbed and a rocky hillside, where the rains come late and the soil holds little water. The ground is a patchwork of pale sand and compacted earth, broken by clusters of thorny scrub, low-lying succulents, and the occasional gnarled small tree that has learned to survive on almost nothing. Rocks sit half-buried, warm to the touch by midday, and the air carries a faint mineral dust.

Animals that call Scrubland home are masters of the small and the hidden. They dig, they bask, they forage in short bursts between long stretches of shade-seeking. The biome's openness means predators can see far, but the scattered cover of bushes and rock piles gives smaller creatures just enough room to vanish. It is a landscape of tension and stillness, where a meerkat's upright watch or a fennec fox's enormous ears catching distant sound are the only proof that the quiet ground is teeming with life.

For the zookeeper in Planet Zoo, choosing Scrubland is a design statement: you are building a world of warmth, exposure, and honesty. There are no dense canopies to hide behind, no rushing waterways. What you build must work in the open, under a wide sky, and the animals you place must genuinely belong to that sun-drenched, dusty world.

Reader's Guide

Scrubland is a biome preset in Planet Zoo that you select when designing an enclosure or a broader zoo zone. It provides a semi-arid terrain with sandy, rocky ground, scattered low shrubs, small dry grasses, and a warm color palette of ochres, dusty greens, and pale stone.

Its role in your zoo is to support animals adapted to dry, open, sun-baked environments. Small mammals like meerkats and fennec foxes, various reptiles, and arid-adapted birds all fit naturally here. The biome's visual language—open sightlines, sparse cover, warm light—helps guests read the enclosure as a believable habitat rather than a generic grassy pen.

When building in Scrubland, lean into its strengths: use the natural rock and shrub placements for hiding spots and visual interest, add a small water feature since the terrain is dry, and keep the overall design open and uncluttered. The biome works best when you let the landscape breathe. Pair it with warm-colored hardscape elements and you'll create an enclosure that feels like a sun-drenched corner of the real world, exactly as the animals in it would know it.

Did You Know?

• Scrubland sits ecologically between the more barren Desert biome and the lusher Grassland, giving players a middle-ground option for arid-but-not-extreme habitats.
• The biome's scattered shrub and rock placements are designed to give small, ground-dwelling animals natural cover and foraging micro-habitats without requiring the player to add every prop manually.
• The dry, sandy terrain means water features are not automatically abundant, so thoughtful zookeepers often add a small pool or drinking station to keep the habitat realistic and the animals' needs met.