Planet Coaster 2
MAKING A SPLASH
How PLANET COASTER 2 is upgrading the theme park sim genre like never before.
By Robert Jones
T
heme park simulators have long made their home on PC. From the now legendary
ThemePark,
created by Peter Molyneux back in 1994, to Frontier Developments’ 2016 hit
PlanetCoaster,
this genre taps into much of what makes PC gaming so great, letting gamers flex their creative and, yes, management skills in one of the most fun environments possible.
But making a good theme park simulator, as with any building sim, is not easy and, as history has shown us, there have been plenty of failures along the way. Only last year, for example, did ParkBeyond, a new theme park sim published by Bandai Namco fail to launch, with PC Gamer’s review stating it offered “a limp campaign and serious lack of depth”. For a simulator, these failings felt like a grievous mistake as, to me at least, they’re critical to what makes the best sims shine.
Water park creation is new in PlanetCoaster 2, letting you design fab flumes, lazy rivers, cool pools and more.
It’s now late August 2024 and I’m traveling to Cambridge, England, to go hands-on with Frontier Developments’ brand new theme park simulator, PlanetCoaster 2, as well as speak with its lead developer, Rich Newbold. The first game was well received by PC Gamer, with PlanetCoastervery much acting as the spiritual successor to the RollerCoaster Tycoon series (Frontier Developments made RollerCoasterTycoon 3). It also rapidly created a lively community of fans online, becoming the theme park sim of note. However, PC Gamer’s review score of 75 percent pointed to a game that could offer even more. So, keen to learn how this sequel was building on the great original experience, I ask Newbold what the vision was with PlanetCoaster 2.
“It was water parks,” he replies candidly. “We really wanted to bring a sequel, and put water parks in it, and [for it to have] all the aspects of those water parks—building a swimming pool; building those water bodies; building flumes—as well as the opportunity to add a lot more depth to the management from the original Planet Coaster, and adding a lot more levers for those park managers to eke out as much money from their guests as possible, and building a thriving, successful park, with happy guests spending their money.
You can ride your own coasters in first-person from any position, from front to back carriage.
“You continue to expand those parks that you’re building, and building upon those systems. But also the creativity as well—taking the great creativity we had in the first game, and taking some of the community feedback where they wanted more creativity, and adding the ability to put scenery pieces directly onto rides and onto coaster cars, and having those move with those as well. As well as things like adding scaling to objects, which was a big community request as well.
“So Planet Coaster 2was predominantly taking those water parks, and putting them in the game, but building upon those amazing foundations we had with the first game.”