Planet Zoo 2: PC Specs, Preload, and the Steam Deck Verdict

Planet Zoo 2 is officially asking for a 6-year-old RTX 2060-class card, 16 GB of RAM, and a 40 GB SSD at minimum, and a 3070-class card or better if you want the experience Frontier built. The game unlocks worldwide on October 13, 2026 at 3 PM UK (10 AM Eastern, 7 AM Pacific), and preloads open 24 hours earlier at the same time on October 12 (more on timing in our Planet Zoo 2 release-time post). Steam Deck has not been rated yet, and the GPU gap is wide enough that a smooth Deck experience is unlikely.

Frontier published these specs on the official Steam store page for Planet Zoo 2 (appid 3219030). Microsoft has ended support for Windows 10, and Frontier’s own fine print says it “cannot guarantee ongoing compatibility” with Win 10 even though the minimum lists it. If you are still on Windows 10, plan to upgrade before launch or accept that the game may eventually stop working.

Minimum PC specs

This is what Frontier says you will need just to launch Planet Zoo 2:

The 40 GB figure is a floor, not a target. Frontier’s recommended spec lists the same 40 GB, and that is the installation size at launch. If you are using a mechanical hard drive, expect long load times. If you are tight on space, our October 2026 release list shows what else is competing for those gigabytes in the next two weeks. The CPU and RAM lines are reasonable for any desktop or laptop built in the last five years; the GPU is the real filter.

Recommended PC specs

For the experience Frontier built, the recommended setup is noticeably newer:

The recommended GPU is a meaningful jump. The RTX 2060 in the minimum tier is roughly the same speed as an Xbox Series S GPU and well behind the Series X and PS5; the RTX 3070 lands between the two consoles in raw performance. A 3070 or RX 6700 XT should hit the kind of zoo-detail and animal-count headroom Frontier designed around, and the same tier is what you will see in most YouTube and Twitch previews when the game goes live.

File size and preload

The Steam page lists 40 GB of available space at both tiers, and that is the installation size Frontier has published. The game preloads on October 12 at 3 PM UK (10 AM ET, 7 AM PT, 4 PM CEST, 2 AM AEST October 13), about 24 hours before the worldwide unlock. Preloading is automatic once you pre-purchase or have the game wishlisted; if you do not see a preload option, restart Steam and check the Downloads pane.

Free up more than 40 GB if you can. Frontier’s spec is the published minimum, not a guarantee that a 40 GB drive with the OS on it will leave enough headroom for the unpack process and shader cache. An SSD is recommended even on the minimum spec and required on the recommended spec. If your boot drive is a 256 GB SATA SSD, you will want to install Planet Zoo 2 on a separate drive.

Steam Deck: no rating, GPU gap is real

Valve’s Steam Deck rating system has not published a verdict for Planet Zoo 2 yet, because the game has not launched. The rating should land on or shortly after October 13. Based on the published spec gap, the most likely outcome is Unsupported or Playable at very low settings:

• Steam Deck’s APU is roughly equivalent to a GTX 1050 Ti in raw shader performance, well behind the RTX 2060 minimum Frontier requires.
• Frontier lists the GPU minimum at 6 GB of VRAM. The Deck’s unified 16 GB memory pool helps, but the GPU itself is the bottleneck.
• ProtonDB has a page for Planet Zoo 2 but, as of this writing, has no player reports yet. It will only fill in after launch, and player-reported ratings usually lag a few days behind release.

If you want to play Planet Zoo 2 on a handheld, the Lenovo Legion Go and ASUS ROG Ally with their RDNA 3 chips are the realistic floor, and even those are unlikely to match the recommended spec. A Steam Deck OLED, a Steam Deck LCD, an AYANEO, or a GPD WIN will struggle.

Controller support and DRM

Two practical notes that do not fit in a spec table:

• Full controller support. Frontier marks Planet Zoo 2 as having full controller support on Steam, which is one of the four criteria Valve checks for a Verified rating. The other three (display, input, system) are usually fine on Deck hardware, but the GPU spec gap is the real blocker.
• Denuvo Anti-tamper. The Steam listing includes Denuvo Anti-tamper, a third-party DRM that historically added a small performance cost and a brief boot delay. Frontier has not said whether Denuvo stays in the final release or only covers the launch window. If your PC is at the minimum spec, Denuvo’s CPU hit may matter; if you are on the recommended spec, you will not notice.

What to do before October 13

If you have an RTX 3070 or RX 6700 XT and a recent 8-core CPU, you can pre-purchase with confidence, pre-install on October 12 at 3 PM UK, and start playing at 3 PM UK on the 13th. Our Planet Zoo 2 release-time post has the full timezone table and the preload note. If your GPU is older than a 2060, or if you are hoping to play on a Steam Deck, wait for the launch-day reviews and the first Player-Counts post on /player-counts/, which will give you a real read on Steam Deck performance once the data comes in. If your drive is full, clean out 60 GB of space today: 40 for the game and 20 for the shader cache and OS breathing room.

Our read: the spec gap between the RTX 2060 minimum and the RTX 3070 recommended is unusually large for a Frontier sim, and it tells you that Planet Zoo 2 is built for a modern mid-range desktop, not a five-year-old office PC. The studio’s track record on Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo 1 was to add scalability options in early patches, not at launch, so set your expectations on minimum-spec performance accordingly. If you can stretch to the recommended tier or close to it, the game will look and load the way Frontier intended. The 40 GB SSD requirement is the easy part; the GPU is the one that decides whether you are in.

Editions at a glance

For reference, the version you buy does not change the system requirements. The Deluxe Edition ($64.99 vs $49.99 standard) bundles the base game with the Deluxe Upgrade Pack, which adds 6 extra species and a set of animal signs, plus the launch Bonus Content Pack (a Toucan Eat Shop, 3 unique animal donation bins, and a tiger photo stand-in wall). The Upgrade Pack adds a few hundred megabytes at most, well under the 40 GB headline figure. The release-time post has the full edition table if you are deciding between Standard and Deluxe.

Edited by Kerwin Stewart, Editor-in-Chief · How we report