Planet Coaster 2 Review

Planet Coaster 2’s announcement came out of nowhere this summer, so it feels kind of surreal to be playing its full release already. Should it have stayed in the oven a while longer or is it ready to open its gates?

The truth is that Frontier Developments’ surprise (but long-awaited) park sim sequel is both everything we’d hoped for and disappointing for anyone looking for management loops that aren’t a chore. Depending on which side you fall on, you’ll either love or feel cold towards this water-soaked fun-ride. Regardless, there’s a lot of bang for the buck in this package. With all the creation and sharing tools included from the get-go, it’s easy to see Planet Coaster 2 thriving in the long run once the player base makes the transition from the first one’s firmly established community.

Water parks have been at the centre of the marketing materials, teasing the sequel was following in the footsteps of RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 (minus the animals, which are covered by Frontier’s Planet Zoo). After previewing Planet Coaster 2 back in September, I was left wondering how big of a role pools and their surrounding mechanics would have in the final release. As it turns out, they never become more important than the core coaster park experience, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t a fantastic addition. In fact, building oddly shaped pools from scratch and then making them as gorgeous as possible with dozens of scenery parts and loopy flumes might be my favourite thing to do in the game right now.

Once you put enough hours into this ambitious sequel, it only becomes more apparent that Frontier has once again cooked a five-star meal with the lively presentation, the tech holding everything together, and every piece of creative and user-oriented tools that will surely secure a bright future for Planet Coaster 2. Sadly, managing parks isn’t nearly as fun, which is a problem that keeps coming up time and again across the company’s wide output of park sims. Both PC1 and Planet Zoo already exhibited some worrying signs, and Jurassic World Evolution 2 too often felt like a slog because of this despite how awesome its prehistoric animals and the overall presentation were.

In Planet Coaster 2, busywork isn’t what will keep you coming back for more. Even if all the management realistically needed to successfully run a park was better presented and had been made more engaging, that side of the park sim formula isn’t why the vast majority of players may choose to jump into it. Sorry, but that’s the reality. That said, we were hoping for improvements on that front, but it seems that Frontier can’t quite figure out what it wants out of that side of its games nor how to make it as fluid as creating the parks and enjoying them as a visitor.

The Career mode is a fine enough distraction for a while, and above all, a source of inspiration when it comes to park layouts and getting more out of your designs. The problems arise once you venture into the more demanding chapters, not because they’re testing (we’re always up for a good challenge), but due to targets (total roller coaster length, guest counts, etc.) and objectives that are convoluted and obtuse far too often. You’ll often waste half an hour trying to figure out what an objective wants you to do instead of… trying to get the actual task right.

Likewise, a common frustration early on is missions requiring you to complete tracked rides and coasters without allowing you to fully edit them, making them strict puzzles that go directly against the promise of ‘doing everything your own way’ at the centre of the game. With no engaging narrative to speak of nor Sandbox unlocks tied to progress in this mode (thankfully), it’s hard to see anyone but completionists making it through the whole thing. I know I didn’t.

Fortunately, Sandbox offers everything you’d want out of a theme park sim and then some, with creative, management-oriented, and custom presets, as well as a handful of biomes available from the get-go and loaded with all the rides, buildings, and items the game contains at launch. This experience sort of extends into the Franchise mode that’s aimed at the more competitive (and co-operative) players; there’s the option to compete against other parks, build them out alongside friends, and even visit them. On top of all that, Frontier’s own workshop is one click away (though you’ll have to create a Frontier account) and makes uploading and downloading blueprints extremely easy.

You’ll want to familiarize yourself with blueprints as soon as possible, as they’re at the centre of the Planet Coaster 2 experience. Frontier’s own blueprints are good, but your parks will look same-y until you start creating stuff from scratch, and that isn’t limited to the attractions and pools. Pretty much everything can be customized with countless modules, pieces of scenery, colours, and whatnot. Some actions are easier to figure out than others, but Planet Coaster 2 rewards patience and experimentation by simply saying “yeah sure, go ahead” almost every time you ask yourself if you can do something. You just have to find the right pieces and tools… and then proceed to tinker away. This is why you’ll want to start saving blueprints of your own sooner rather than later, as redoing everything from scratch in the future might be too time-consuming for a functioning adult (we won’t judge).

A major worry every time a new ambitious city/park sim comes out is the performance. I can’t speak about the console versions launching alongside the core PC release, but I think Frontier seems to have figured out Cobra pretty well by now. As far as recent sim releases go, this has been the smoothest ride I’ve had even if things can get a bit bumpy when you constantly go in and out of menus and building/editing modes. It’s all to be expected, really. Just make sure to have a modern GPU/CPU combo up to the task if you’re going for 2K/4K resolutions. Proper upscaling integration is also available at launch, with both AMD and Nvidia’s solutions delivering fine results (though DLSS frame generation seems to have a clear advantage should you go for that extra help).

In any case, Planet Coaster 2 is even more lively and colourful than its predecessor, and I haven’t experienced any major visual glitch that wasn’t caused by my reality-bending tinkering with the scenery (you can remove certain limits inside the options menu with cheat-like settings). AI on guests can be wonky at times though, with large crowds often refusing to go into a newly opened area of the park or standing around in pool zones. As parks grow larger, one can also imagine all those simulations being taxing and prone to bugging out, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that Frontier has decided to cap the max guest count across all versions of the game… for now.

All in all, Planet Coaster 2 gets better the more time and thought you put into it. It just shines much brighter once you get all the busywork and opaque objectives out of the way. It’s great to have so many different modes to experience all it has to offer, but our recommendation is not to force yourself into making it through a half-baked Career mode or enjoying the intricacies of management if they aren’t your cup of tea.

The negatives also raise the question of whether Frontier is taking enough notes on the ‘less fun, more chore-ish’ part of its simulation games and properly testing them before launch with players who aren’t established fans of the genre. Even as someone who’s been playing these for as long as I can remember, I found many design, text, and UI decisions unrelated to the management mechanics and systems downright baffling, and that may be a huge obstacle when it comes to onboarding newcomers.