Pre-release
During 2006, in a similar way to how the African Adventure expansion was first confirmed, Amazon.com listed a strategy guide for Extinct Animals under its listings. It was listed as "Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct (working title)", showing Blue Fang Games were still in very early production and had not yet thought of a title.
Nevertheless, in January 2007, Windows Vista released its 2007 gaming lineup as well as a promotional video featuring a few seconds of footage. Later, in April 2007, Games for Windows added an Extinct Animals page to their website and revealed several new pieces of information such as box art and animal confirmations. The text that was shown was in fact the same as in the previous Endangered Species.
On May 24, an official press release was released on the official Zoo Tycoon website revealing that Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals will be released in "fall/autumn" with a total of 30 animals, making it the largest Zoo Tycoon 2 expansion pack to date. On amazon.com and .co.uk, it showed the release dates for Europe and the USA.
Upon the arrival of E3 2007, Games for Windows and Blue Fang Games released a second promotional video of several new features and a set of screenshots. The Extinct Animals Games for Windows page was also edited with screenshots and new information. Zoo Tycoon.com, however, was still not updated for E3.
In August 2007, Blue Fang Games released an official trailer showing many of the main features of the expansion, including sonar detection for fossils and minigames to clone creatures, as well as confirming several animals. In the same month Blue Fang employees on several fansites began releasing new information, confirming a total of eight unseen animals.
In September 2007, the official Zoo Tycoon website was finally updated with a new Extinct Animals page, in addition to screenshots, the rest of the game's features, a "fansite kit", game demo and an official screensaver.
Read more about this topic: Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals