Animals Gone Wild: Zoochosis

Pacing, swaying, and rocking are all signs of captivity-induced stress in animals. This is what zoochosis is—a set of abnormal, repetitive behaviors developed by captive animals. Zoochosis, the game, uses this condition as its base point to turn mental distress into something physical and visceral. 

Zoochosis, released in September 2024, is available to play on PlayStation, Windows, and Steam. This single-player zoo management game with a horrific sci-fi twist was developed by ClapperHeads and takes roughly two hours to complete.

The Bottom of The Food Chain

You start the game as a young man, Paul Connelly, in an interview for a job as an overnight zookeeper. The manager walks you through some tasks, such as feeding animals, taking their vitals, cleaning up after them, and treating sick animals. 

Paul is hired on the spot and immediately locked inside the facility—for “safety” reasons—to start his first night shift. Paul is left alone inside the zoo, and it's up to him to manage the health of all the animals. At first, it's normalish, and then there’s this sharp decline into a much darker and terrifying atmosphere. 

The story is one you need to piece together to find out. Paul’s back story is the most straightforward. He’s a struggling husband who needs money. He doesn’t seem to be the best husband, but he’s attempting to do his best, even if that means stealing a mysterious package of meat from his new job and giving it to his wife and child. 

The rest of the story you get from phone calls that set the mood for what the truth behind this zoo is. This zoo isn’t a normal one, as you’ve likely already figured out. The animals are sick, and the sicker they get, the more deadly they get. Paul must survive the night and uncover why these animals are getting sick in the first place.

Feeding Time…

Your job as Paul is to learn the proper medications to make and curate the proper meals to match each species' unique diet. A process that is incredibly interesting, in concept, because you get to measure out each ingredient yourself and must do it properly to ensure a good outcome. 

However, the mechanics in Zoochosis are hard to learn, and if you ever do learn them, they hardly ever work properly. At first, I found the gameplay very similar to other horror games—like The Mortuary Assistant—because you’re given normal tasks and must navigate the horrific and mundane.

Predator Versus Prey

The mechanics aren’t the only scary part of Zoochosis. Zoochosis combines an uneasy atmosphere and the familiarity of animal care to create something unique—or at least that was the hope. The promise of a good game was there. The atmosphere is unsettling from the start, and the scares are rather good, but there’s one blaring issue: the tasks Paul has been assigned.

As I said, the mechanics are broken, making most of your tasks overly frustrating to complete, but also the sheer number of things Paul needs to do turns Zoochosis into a chore simulator. This is incredibly disappointing because there are plenty of other horror games that manage to create the right balance between tasks and their story—I think of The Closing Shift by Chilla’s Art. 

Zoochosis has such a fascinating concept and could be so interesting that I almost overlook the feeling that you’re at work instead of playing a game, but the wonky mechanics plus that feeling are unfortunately too much to ignore. 

Primal Instinct

There is one bright side to Zoochosis: the animals. All the animals look incredible, and when they’re sick, they turn into something truly revolting to look at. My personal favorite of these transformations is the giraffes, as pictured on the cover of the game. 

But if you were to ask me my favorite animal in Zoochosis, it would be the penguins. Their enclosure has the most detail and arguably the best animal. They were the first enclosure I had to work in, and I’ll admit, I spent way too long in there just admiring the feathered arctic creatures. 

That is why I find it to be so disappointing that Zoochosis turned from a game with a really strong and interesting opening to one that felt like you were just doing chores. 

Extinction

You’d think a game with over 20 endings would have decent replayability, but Zoochosis is one of those games you play once and don’t go back to because of how monotonous it gets. Even with its fascinating concept, Zoochosis just couldn’t make up for the broken mechanics and boring chores. The main highlight of Zoochosis is the animals and their designs, which gains Zoochosis a whole extra point in my mind. 

If you were ever thinking of applying for a zookeeper job, this game might just be for you. Forget the scares and focus mainly on all the chores you’ll have to do, and maybe you’ll learn something in this chore simulator. 

My Rating