Planet Coaster 2 Hands-on Preview - If you can dream it, you can build it
Almost everyone loves a good park sim, but outside of indie developers replicating classics like RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and remasters, we could argue only Frontier Developments has been keeping that genre alive in recent times. Eight years after the release of the original Planet Coaster, its bigger, flashier, and far-wetter sequel is just around the corner.
Planet Coaster 2 arrives after years of support for the original game and the British developer diving deep into zoo management sims with Planet Zoo and two Jurassic World titles (with a third one on the way). That means the underlying tech has grown a lot in a short amount of time and that Frontier has learned a few major lessons since the first Planet Coaster launched. How have all these recent projects affected the sequel?
“We’ve been taking all of that experience and community feedback on… but also the learnings that we’ve had from bringing Planet Coaster 1 and Planet Zoo to consoles. Myself and Adam have worked on Jurassic World Evolution 1 and Jurassic World Evolution 2 as well. So all of those experiences of building these management systems and these creative systems… All of that experience has just been fed into Planet Coaster 2,” Rich Newbold (game director) told me when asked about the process of expanding and improving on the formula thanks to those other games. While Planet Coaster 1 was a fantastic creative sandbox, some players felt that maybe the ‘running a park’ side of things needed to be meatier.
Most of our preview session was spent playing an in-progress build of the game and checking out many of its new features. The ability to build water parks has been at the center of the marketing materials released so far, and it instantly became clear that’s where Frontier’s focus seems to be as the company nears the just-announced November 6 launch date.
First, we were thrown into a scenario that – we were told – takes place a few ‘missions’ into the career mode. The lack of a tutorial made things a bit disorienting at first despite how simple the objectives were. Planet Coaster 2 is doing a whole lot, and its UI can be daunting initially. Moreover, successfully powering buildings and figuring out how to distribute and clean the water also takes some getting used to. We were told an extensive tutorial happens early on, but we press and content creators were thrown into the deep end of the pool (pun intended) so we could get a better look at the meat and potatoes of the game.
The level intro was surprisingly chatty and painted a competitive picture, with a few characters clashing over what the park should be. It’s all tonally upbeat and light, but apparently, scenarios won’t be a walk in the park. After struggling with the power and water connections for a while and learning how to create proper queues into the water slides, I found myself short on money to go bigger and bolder with my swimming pools and land rides, which, by the way, aren’t taking a back seat in Planet Coaster 2.
“In Planet Coaster 2, we have over 60 roller coasters and 30 amusement rides as well as track-powered rides and transport rides… A number of those were remade from parts in Planet Coaster 1, so we built them for the creative systems that we have in Planet Coaster 2. There’s a lot more detail on them as well and customization options. So you can now change the patterns on some of those rides, you can attach scenery to them,” Newbold was happy to confirm, also adding that theme and customisation were key areas the team looked at.
Indeed, making far more creatively ambitious parks with rides and buildings that are extremely modular and customizable seems to be a big focus here. After a bumpy ride with the scenario we were allowed to play, the rest of the session let us go wild in the fan-favorite sandbox mode. Without having to worry about money or visitor complaints, the systems and mechanics truly came to life. Sure, placing pre-made pools, rides, and small buildings works, and you’ll only have to worry about the overall layout of the park and making sure everything functions correctly if you go down this route. The game, however, shines more the more effort you put into creating every element and embellishing the environments.
After spending some time with the menus and figuring out where’s what, making a pool from scratch is easy, and so is moving almost every element around, including all the vegetation added in through the handy brush tool. Those are just two examples. The best way to describe the level of detail and interaction possible in Planet Coaster 2 is that it truly feels like physically interacting with a huge theme park model that you’re creating from scratch with your own hands. If you want to change one little thing about the rollercoaster you just dropped in your park, chances are you can quickly click on and tinker with it. You just have to find the right options and menus to do so.
The terrain tools also remain as strong as they were in the original Planet Coaster and reminded us of how great it’d be to have that degree of creative control over parks in the Jurassic World Evolution games. Creating an entire valley is remarkably easy, and so is getting decorations in the exact position you want them to be. Gravity isn’t an issue (at least in the sandbox mode) if you want to get truly crazy with the tools available and make slightly otherworldly parks.
While user-made blueprints that can be uploaded to Frontier’s servers and be shared remain at the center of Planet Coaster, the multiplayer, community-driven experience will level up this time around with ‘shared saves’ that allow players to build parks together. How does this exactly work though? I asked executive producer Adam Woods about the exciting new feature, and his answer didn’t disappoint: “Those modes (franchise and sandbox) are asynchronous multiplayer modes… I could plot out all the roller coasters I wanted to build because that was my specialty. And then I could upload it in-game… Rich could download latest version of that park, and then he could add his expertise to it. So let’s say that he’s really good at theming and scenery placement and maybe pool placement. He could then do that… He can then reupload that.”
This sounds fantastic and, given what we know about the highly active communities that Frontier’s games have, will surely keep Planet Coaster 2 fresh for years to come. The best part? It’s a feature that will work across all platforms, as it uses Frontier’s accounts and servers. “Players will need to create a Frontier account and either link that with their PlayStation, Steam, or Xbox account,” Woods confirmed. Of course, performance in huge parks on consoles remains a concern, but we were assured that the sequel has been built from the get-go with controllers in mind, much like their Jurassic World titles, as we’re looking at a simultaneous multiplatform release this time around.
By and large, Planet Coaster 2 looks and plays exactly how you’d want it to. I’m still not sure about the management side of things, especially given some missteps in 2021’s Jurassic World Evolution 2 that resulted in a lot of vapid busywork, but we’ll have to wait until the full release to see how it all comes together. Regardless, the creative tools on display and the many options introduced with the water park attractions seem to only raise the appeal of the game, which is first and foremost to create dream theme parks from scratch and with as few restrictions as possible. Personally, I can’t wait to jump back in.
Planet Coaster 2 will be released on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on November 6, 2024. Both standard and deluxe editions are available to pre-order now.
