How To Unlock Thriving Requirements In Planet Zoo 2

Published Oct 22, 2026, 3:55 PM EDT Although Kaitlyn grew up with a passion for both video games and writing, she never imagined she'd eventually combine them into a career. Now, with several years of experience in the industry across Guides, Features, News, & Reviews, Kaitlyn enjoys nothing more than continuing to deep dive into the games she's passionate about and share her findings with readers. In her downtime, Kaitlyn enjoys unwinding with her favorite horror films, despite being a major scaredy-cat. While you might already know plenty about the animals in Planet Zoo 2, your staff and guests do not. So, if you're hoping to improve the care of your animals, educate your guests, and unlock new items, then you'll need to participate in research. Research is completed exclusively by vets at a Research Center in your zoo and is the only way to unlock a species' thriving requirements among other important features that are all related to the reputation of your zoo. How To Complete Research As mentioned, only vets can do research, and only if they have access to a Research Center. To hire a vet, in case you haven't already, select the option next to management at the bottom of the screen, then select vet from the list of available employee roles for hire. It's recommended that you have multiple vets on staff, especially if you plan to prioritize research, so you don't neglect the animals you already have or risk overworking your staff. As for the Research Center, you'll find the building under Facilities at the bottom of the screen and can add it anywhere in your zoo. A larger Research Center will allow up to 6 vets to research at once, while the smaller one will allow only one at a time. Research does not carry over from Career to Franchise mode. However, zoos in the same franchise in Franchise mode will share the same research. Research is not required in Sandbox mode. Once you've added the Research Center of your choice, you'll be able to access Research from the tab at the bottom of your screen. Here you'll have four research options: species, enrichment, education, and disease. Species: This research focuses on a single species and allows you to learn more about it, including thriving requirements. This will improve animal welfare, guest education, and breeding potential. You can only perform this research on animal species inside your zoo. Enrichment: This allows you to research new food and toy enrichment items for your animals. This is probably the lowest priority of the bunch. Education: This allows you to research educational topics that will increase guest education, your zoo's reputation, and donations. Disease: This allows the vets to research their primary focus, diseases that affect the animals. You can see which diseases are more dangerous and which ones are most likely to affect the animals currently in your care. It seems obvious to go after the more dangerous ones, but it's best to focus on common ones you may have already seen pop up around your zoo. Don't forget to train your vets to increase their skill. This will improve their research skills and benefit them in other aspects of their job. This does come with a pay increase, however, so keep that in mind. When you've decided on a research topic, assign a specific vet to that topic, and they'll begin researching the next time they're at the Research Center. You can pause research at any point if you need the vet for something else; otherwise, they will keep going until the research is complete or they reach a Research Gate. What Is A Research Gate? A Research Gate is a requirement that you should already be familiar with if you've been playing through the Career mode. The Research Gate means that to continue, you will need to release a group of this species into the wild and set up an Observation Network​​​​​​, if there isn't one already. This typically involves placing Observation Platforms and Outposts and completing tasks. If you're unsure whether you already have an established Observation Network, you can hover over the Research Gate under the species, and it will show you which requirements you've met and which are still missing. In Career Mode, you've likely already done this, so the process should be a bit familiar. To start, open up Trading & Storage and tab over to the Release Groups. Here, you can create a release group for the species that you need to continue researching. Different species will have different release group requirements. For example, the Greater Flamingos group that I've shown below requires 5 males and 5 females to be released. The easiest way to do this, especially for something that requires an even number of both sexes, is to select an animal and its mate for release. To add them to the Release Group, they'll need to be in your storage, so head into their habitat and store the animals you intend to release. Once they're in storage, add them to the release group and then select the option to finalize the release group and confirm. At this point, you can either Quick Release or Release to the Wildlife Reserve. Typically, going to the Wildlife Reserve gives you more Conservation Credits, so I'd recommend it, but you can do the Quick Release if you're looking to save time. Once you've released the animal into the Wildlife Reserve and ensured its requirements were met, you should have met your Research Gate requirement and can now proceed with the rest of the species research to better your zoo.