Community Discussions
Explore the latest discussions and community conversations related to this domain.
Animal/pet games?
Main Post:
Hi! Would love to hear some game suggestions related to animals. They can either be sims, puzzle games, some adventure + exploration ones, anything I guess. You can be the animal or the human, but animals should at least play a relatively important role throughout the game and not necessarily be the main focus! The animals don’t have to be real animals, they can also be plushies, spirits, whatever else, I’ll give examples below.
I played Planet of Lana and it has the cute little cat, but it’s not exactly the main focus of the game. Endling - Extinction is Forever is a game I’d love to try out, even though I’ve heard it’s quite depressing and sad. I recently finished Sheepy: A Short Adventure (it’s free on Steam, totally recommend it!) and even though the sheep is actually a plushie, that works too! I loved Stray as well and would adore a similar game, but I don’t think any game can really match it. However Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori will be releasing this year and it looks amazing, realistic and the focus are horses which I absolutely love!!! I’d also like to buy The Ranch of Rivershine in the near future, looks cute and good, again with horses. WolfQuest is on my wishlist too, I only played the demo when I was a kid. I’ve also recently bought Spiritfarer and will play it soon so spirits in the form of animals are fine as well!
Overall I absolutely love foxes, cats, dogs, wolves and horses from what you can see, but I’m not going to say no to other animals! (except for bugs probably, but oh well if they’re cute suggest that too maybe?). Would definitely love some marine animals as well! The thing is the game shouldn’t have too much violence or be too gory/bloody, it shouldn’t be realistic in that sense. I did hear RDR2 has got some good horses, but the game looks too violent for me. Also no killing animals as a human, killing animals while being another animal for survival/protection is fine though as long as it’s not too realistic. Thank you!
Top Comment: Since you asked for recommendations, just a small heads-up to please include which platform you are looking for (e.g., PC, Switch, etc.). Additionally, adding information such as the sub-genre you're interested in (e.g., adventure, action, RPG) and games you dislike would also help us recommend the perfect game! I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Other animal games besides Planet Zoo for animal lovers
Main Post:
This list is composed of steam games
I think with little doubt that if you love animals and videogames you should do yourself a favor and get Planet Zoo. It's the best game on the market for wildlife/animal content and every update/dlc only makes it better. After Frontier has announced another DLC (Grassland Pack: nine-banded armadillo, maned wolf, Emu, Red-Necked Wallaby, Caracal, Blue Wildebeest, Striped Hyena, and 5 butterfly species) it made me think about some of the other games on Steam that also have animals. I have a pretty good list going, and I thought some of you might appreciate it! So before I begin I would like to preface this list with some of the games may not be 100% animal focused but may have a lot of attention on wildlife. I will separate this list into groups, played and waiting to play.
So besides Planet Zoo I recommend:
The games I have played:
- Megaquarium: has a cartoony artstyle but if you are looking for a very simple aquarium builder it’s great. I know many people are hoping for fish to be added into Planet Zoo, so while you are waiting this is another good builder/tycoon game for fish lovers.
- Grounded: survival game where you are the size of a bug. It’s cool seeing all the insects that could live in your backyard. A lot of bugs will try to attack you, but I think they are pretty cool regardless.
- The Long Dark: survival game set in the dead of winter. A lot of your survival involves animal interaction, finding animals for food and not becoming food.
- Dinkum: animal crossing based game with wildlife inspired by Australia. Seems pretty cool so far, has fishing/trapping mechanic and a pretty good group of animals.
- Untitled Goose Game: play as a public menace. There may be no waterfowl in the game yet, but maybe that's for everyone's safety.
- Webbed: play as a cute little spider. Very fun for platforming, making webs in this game is a blast.
- Wild Earth Africa: you may have played the Wii version of this game. Super nostalgic for me, though the graphics are super outdated.
- Lost Ember: play as a lost soul that can possess animals. You mostly play as a wolf, but you have plenty of other animals to posses. Good story too.
- Beyond Blue: play as a diver and interact with animals. My favorite animals are whales, and since Frontier will never add them in-game this is a great hold over for me. Has a sad story to it as well.
- Abzu: dialogue-less game where you can swim with animals. Super chill game with an awesome art style. It also has more whales!
- The Odyssey of a Mammoth: downloaded but haven’t played yet. Play as a mama mammoth!
- Animal Shelter: run an animal shelter and get cats and dogs adopted. Another chill game and great for cat and dog lovers.
- Alba a Wildlife Adventure: play as a girl who takes photos of Mediterranean wildlife. A lot of the animals in this game are birds, so a good game to play while we wait for flying birds in Planet Zoo. This game is primarily aimed at kids but it is still fun.
- Gibbon beyond the trees: movement based game about a mother gibbon. If you loved gibbons being added in the conservation pack you will love the brachiation in this game.
- Bee simulator: play as a bee trying to help its nest. Another game aimed at kids, but with butterflies being added in game I hope we can get some bees eventually!
- Shelter 2: play as a mother lynx trying to get all your cubs to adulthood. Very replayable for a short game, the art style is very fun. If you liked the lynx in the Europe DLC you will love this game.
- Red Dead Redemption 2: ok hear me out. The amount of wildlife in this game is amazing, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find every species and just watch nature. A lot of the animals have subtle interactions with one another you would miss if you don't pay attention to it. If you like North American wildlife I recommend (even if the main story is 70 hours long).
- Zoo Tycoon Ultimate Animal Collection: another Frontier game and the PC port from the home consoles. Basically inferior to planet zoo in every way, but if you are looking for some of the animals in this game that aren't in Planet Zoo it might be worth a shot. Frontier has learned a lot since releasing this, but I am still hoping that they will add the birds, monkeys, and sloths from this game.
Games I haven’t played/ wishlisted:
- Prehistoric Kingdom/ Jurassic World Evolution 2: two different dinosaur building games. The Jurassic World Evolution games are also made by Frontier, so it's of good quality. If you love the Jurassic World movies and dinosaurs it's a good game. Prehistoric Kingdom has more "accurate" dinosaurs, and has building like Planet Zoo.
- Shelter: original shelter game where you play as a mother badger. From what I heard it is still a good game but not as replayable.
- Eco: survival building game focused on saving the world without destroying the ecosystem or making animals extinct.
- Paperbark: play as a cute wombat to a watercolor artstyle. Wombat fans from the twilight pack might like this cute game.
- Ancestors a Human Kind Odyssey: play as a monkey version of our early ancestors and try to survive.
- Feather: game lets you fly around as a bird to calm music. That's really all it is.
- Maneater: play as a man-eating shark. From what I have seen the game is pretty violent.
- Wildlife Tycoon Venture Africa: old game that lets you manage a wildlife reserve. I know many people are hoping this feature gets added into Planet Zoo, so hopefully this old game will fill in that need.
- Green Hell: survive in the Amazon and survive the wildlife and local cannibals. If you like the jungle aesthetic or Capybaras this game could be for you.
- WolfQuest: game lets you play as and create your own wolf. From what I have seen this game looks very popular.
- Spirit of the North: play as a fox, that's as much as I know about the game.
- Endling Extinction is Forever: play as a mother fox. Supposedly the game is very sad.
- Stray: probably heard of this game. Play as a cute cat in a steampunk world!
- I am a fish: platforming game where you play as a fish.
So here’s my list so far. Admittedly some of these are a stretch but as an animal lover I take what I can get. Also some are survival games where you may have to hurt/ eat animals so I understand if that’s not your cup of tea. As I said earlier I think Planet Zoo is a fantastic game that is aging like fine wine, it's only getting better every couple of months. I would also really like to recommend getting all the DLC if you can, some maybe more worth it than others but I like having every animal. Also the new Grasslands DLC is out so I recommend people wishlist it. I was hoping for a bird/ aviary dlc but I think this new one looks good! If any of you have any other animal games on steam I missed feel free to add it!
Top Comment: You mentioned Zoo Tycoon Ultimate Animal Collection but you didn't mentioned the one the legend and pretty much only game that (with mods) rival Planet Zoo despite being 18 years old now ? Zoo Tycoon 2
Any Good Animal Games You Would Reccomend? :: Steam Community
Main Post: Any Good Animal Games You Would Reccomend? :: Steam Community
Any games that are like taking care of animals/creatures?
Main Post:
The only example on hand I have right now is Dragon Village Collection , zoo tycoon and those old horse games where you took care of horses and bred them.
I’m looking for games like this, they’re my favorite type of game and comfort for me! Can be any sort of mythical creatures, regular animals, anything. I love the aspects of collection and breeding in games so any game that has please lmk! Platforms preferred: Mobile (IOS), PC, or switch
Top Comment: Slime rancher! The catching of and caring for the slimes is not super in depth but the gameplay loop is super comfy and I find it so cute and relaxing. On the other end of the scale there’s Planet Zoo, which I also find relaxing but is much more in depth in terms of having to build the zoo and the animal enclosures and making sure everything meets their needs. You’re also less hands on with the animals personally, it’s more making their habitat, assigning keepers and then watching them thrive. When I’ve mentioned it here before it’s really been 50/50 on whether people agree it’s “cozy” but it might be up your street!
Hunting animals in games- I see the appeal but i could never get into it.
Main Post:
Oh you know the works. Open world, vast nature and landscape, a map that tells you the hunting spots of a deer that is also a legendary albino super rare death lord or whatever. It absolutely seemed like a fun thing to do when i was first introduced to it but the more i see it in open world games the more I get tired of it.
Was first introduced to it in Far Cry 3, technically. I was quite enamored by it actually, the thought of going toe-to-toe with exotic animals (and sharks, go figure) was such a cool thing back in 2012. Then the more I get into it the more it felt forced. I quickly found myself running down boars with atv's and gunning them down with an AK just so i can quickly get a wallet upgrade.
In Assassin's creed 3, unless it was forced into a mission i never even touched hunting. I did other things for a quick buck, anything but hunting. If I had to or wanted to hunt somehow i'd just turn on eagle vision and chase those animal fucks with a musket's bayonet.
In RDR2, the only times I do hunt is that mission with hosea with the bear (which i failed multiple times because I charged the bear lmao) and when I'm getting food for pearson.. Even then I go full horse archer hunting down animals like a mongolian soldier during the 13th century.
And in my most recent game kingdom come deliverance, the mission where you had to hunt rabbits with a bow had me chasing them down with a seax. Or waiting for the AI to dumb out and get stuck in a rock or a tree, and just shooting them there.
Though I do get the appeal- placing down traps, tracking down the creature, being patient and making tactical decisions on when to strike the animal does sound like a rewarding thing to do once you succeed. But its absolutely not for me, and I hate it when video games force it into a mission (making you follow its slow and lethargic process of tracking down the animal too) and even worse, make it necessary to hunt if you wanna progress.
Who else feels this way?
Top Comment:
I can’t really think of a game I’ve ever really hunted in. I don’t have the patience. I usually tend to see animals as part of the landscape in games and ignore them being there, unless it’s an animal coming to kill me
Good vr games that you can play as animals
Main Post:
Anyone hear of a vr game you can play as cats,dogs,bears,fish,birds anything like that? Would be very interesting and have been looking for a while. Thanks for the help!
Top Comment: Eagle flight vr. Not amazing but ok
Why aren't there any realistic survival simulations where you play as an animal?
Main Post:
It's a game i've wanted since i was a kid. I loved animals and animal documentaries, and I loved to play make-pretend where i was an animal. And I know I'm not the only one..
There's nothing wrong with the current games we have now, and I like a good shooter as much as the next guy, but what i've been craving is an in-depth, realistic and detailed survival experiance as an animal. Hell, it doesnt even have to be based on real earth animals, and the graphics could be simplistic like minecraft's.
There have been games which try to do it but don't quite get it, while others "claim" to do it, and a lot of projects have tried to do it but never got anywhere.
I know that these days a lot of companies are afraid to try new things, and I don't blame them. But I still think there would definitely be a market for this sort of indepth, science-based simulation.
And I already can predict the names of titles which people will mention in this thread. Spore, Tokyo Jungle, Shelter 2, Wolfquest, The Endless Forest, and various dated flash games. But none of these games ever captured the depth that i was looking for, even as a child.
The closest i've ever found to a game which does what i wanted it to do was Wolf, a DOS game from 1994.
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/531/Wolf.html
It's a fun game, but difficult and unbalanced. I played it a lot when i discovered it a long while ago, even though by then it was hopelessly dated. Sometimes I'll boot up a virtual machine to play it, but not as much as i used to.
I know there is a demand for this sort of game. Every once in a while, I'll google around to see if there's anything like what I've been craving for years in development, but I usually only find discussions of people asking the the same thing: Where are all the animal simulations?
Top Comment:
The thing is, these sorts of games are already niche enough as it is, and if you add more complexity or depth to it, i'm not really sure how many developers are gonna go ahead and say, "Yep, we need to make this asap.". The issue is, game developers still operate as a business, and unless they can see a big enough market, they probably won't commit effort and resources to actually make both an animal game, and a simulation game, both genres of which are very, very niche.
Animal breeding games?
Main Post:
Hey everyone! I have a question for y'all. I really love games with heavy animal breeding mechanics and I was hoping you knew of any? There's just something about that that I've always really enjoyed. I used to go on a website called Horse Haven as a child that was almost exclusively for breeding your virtual horses, and while it does still exist, it is by no means the same game anymore. Hell, I even like "breeding" humans in Sims (god that sounds weird). I figured I couldn't be the only one that enjoyed the act of breeding to increase stats or find new breeds and colors, so I thought I would ask. Thanks for reading!
Top Comment:
Pokemon
Harvest Moon
Stardew Valley
Edit:
VIVA PIÑATA!!!!!
Holy shit, forgot about that one, it's a great game.
List of Video Games where you can pet the dogs
Main Post:
Okay guys I'm doing v-important research into video games and I need you guys to help me with this it's p-important.
I've made a list of video games where you can pet the dogs. This is important. But I think there's more video games where you can pet the dogs? Dogs are good so please help me add to the list.
Here is the list:
- Watch Dogs 2
- The Sims 3
- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
- Far Cry 5
- Assassin’s Creed Origins
- Fable II
- Assassin’s Creed Rogue Remastered
- The Sims 2
- Fable III
- Far Cry Primal
- Fallout 4
- Valiant Hearts: The Great War
- Nintendogs
- The Sims
- The Last Guardian
- Pet the Pup at the Party
- Life is Strange
- The Walking Dead Season 2
- Undertale
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Final Fantasy XV
- Super Mario Odyssey
- The Sims 4
Please help if you find any more good puppers I need to know about them.
Edit: hi instead of gilding this post please go donate to your local shelter. Dogs are good.
Also thanks for more games with dogs. This is vital. I’ll add them later when I’m not in a car. I’m in a car now though.
If you don’t like this post fear not: the dogs still like you. Unless you seriously unironically use big words to sound faux smart.
Edit 2: I'M HERE WITH MORE DOGS
- World of Warcraft
- Final Fantasy VIII
- Assassin’s Creed III
*The Last of Us
*Warframe
*Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
*Final Fantasy XIV
*Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
*Haunting Grounds
*Dragon Age Origins
*Warioware Touched
Also I have seen many accusations that I am Naked Jake but I don't know who that is. I'm Sam.
I've also seen accusations that I'm a dog. I'm actually a hyena though.
Edit 3: Dogs!
Top Comment:
You can use /pet command in World of Warcraft, dogs included.