Planet Coaster 2 hands-on preview – build your own adventure park

Planet Coaster 2 – build your own Thorpe Park (Frontier Developments)

Frontier Developments’ state-of-the-art theme park builder could take the genre to new heights, even on consoles.

Perhaps it’s their inbuilt feel-good factor – seeing virtual humans having virtual fun provides a surprisingly good buzz – but theme park simulators have carved out an unexpectedly popular niche in the video game world. There’s a surprising number of the games already available but there’s a special air of anticipation surrounding Frontier Developments’ Planet Coaster 2, since its 2016 predecessor is so beloved.

We managed to get over two hours’ hands-on play with it, with the game running on an Xbox Series X – although we played it being streamed to a PC. Given that it’s always much trickier to design intuitive gameplay interfaces for high-end sims like Planet Coaster 2, that operate via a gamepad rather than keyboard and mouse, it was interesting to see it being demoed on consoles.

After some initial confusion (we had been jumped into the third chapter of Planet Coaster 2’s story mode, so missed the tutorials) it became clear that Frontier has done an impressive job in making the game accessible on every format.

Does Planet Coaster 2 have a story campaign?

Our first chunk of gameplay took the form of a scenario entitled Double Trouble, which cast us as an employee of a company called Coaster Coast, owned by a character named Oswald Thompson, who was engaged in some rivalry with another theme park builder called Kenta Suzuki, who had deviously purchased some land in the same park as Coaster Coast. That mean we could only build certain attractions on his part of the land but could do whatever we wanted on ours.

Once we got down to it, there wasn’t much in evidence of storyline, beyond a number of objectives (such as to build two swimming pools) which we had to meet or exceed. Respect to Frontier for figuring out a way of shoehorning a story mode into Planet Coaster 2, though, since theme park simulators aren’t generally known for possessing anything by way of narrative.

Interface-wise, Planet Coaster 2 made heavy use of the controller’s bumper buttons, enabling you to scroll horizontally across all the different elements that constitute its vast array of attractions, buildings, facilities, and staff. They also give quick access to vital elements such as the path-building system and the erase function: a crucial tool (accessible via a bulldozer icon) which, we found, had been cleverly tuned for a gamepad, by allowing you to adjust its brush-width (wide lets you delete whole chunks of things you had erroneously built) and to apply filters so that, say, it would only delete pathways.

How do the gamepad console controls work in Planet Coaster 2?

Having built a flat ride (akin to something you’d find at a sophisticated fairground) in order to start bringing in customers, we started placing some swimming pools. Two gameplay elements immediately stood out: the importance of careful pathing (customers will only move through theme parks on delineated paths, it seems) and the importance of providing power and plumbing to rides, in order for them to function properly.

One element of Planet Coaster 2 that will endear it to those who played the original game is its new pathing system. Once you have placed an element like a ride your next task is to place its entrance and exit, which can generally be moved a small amount within a designated part of that ride. As such, ride orientation proves very important and for that Planet Coaster 2 uses a system involving holding down the controller’s ‘X’ button, which also allowed us to move coasters vertically upwards, automatically extending the legs on which they were built and thereby allowing punters to walk around safely underneath them.

In the pathing system, you can choose to construct paths that curve around, which makes the whole process of connecting one point to another much easier, since the game shows an element of intelligence in allowing you to determine how sharp you wanted those curves to be.

Planet Coaster 2 – it can be as complicated as you want it to be (Frontier Developments)

For powered rides, you have to add generators and connect them together. it is easy to extend the area covered by adding generators and daisy-chaining them to existing power distributors. The water-plumbing system works in the same way (except using wells rather than generators) and we soon became attuned to Planet Coaster 2’s general vocabulary – which in turn made us feel as though we might make a decent fist of designing theme parks in real life after all.

Planet Coaster 2’s feedback on what you have to do in order to get its various parts working is very clear and soon enough customers started using all the rides and facilities, creating a very satisfying vocal hubbub. There was also a constant stream of less-than-positive feedback, via a system that Frontier calls heat maps 0 customers would point out that the pool lacked a changing-room or toilet facilities, say, or that a distant ride was too far away, or a coaster was too scary.

Having achieved our objectives in Double Trouble, the second part of our demo plunged us into Planet Coaster 2’s sandbox, with unlimited funds, so that we could really experience the breadth of what it had to offer. If you wanted to, you could make a water park, a rollercoaster park or even an elaborate fairground.

While it contained many fearsome pre-designed coasters and rides, the sandbox mode also allowed us to design our own roller-coasters, pools and even individual buildings from scratch, and to terraform to our heart’s content. Planet Coaster 2 will be an absolute dream for gamers who class themselves as inveterate creative tinkerers.

Having built one elaborate rollercoaster we jumped into the first person view to test its, so we could see what the experience of riding it would be like. This led to us deciding to create a downward-spiralling path that allowed punters to enter and exit it. We also had fun building elaborate flume rides that sent visitors sliding down into swimming pools, and there was always something to do in order to keep everybody satisfied.

Planet Coaster 2 also has a number of pre-designed themes: Resort, Aquatic, Viking, and Mythology. No doubt enthusiastic players will develop their own themes, and others will become available via deluxe versions of the game and DLC, including a Vintage Funfair Ride Pack, along with specific rollercoasters and rides that aren’t in the base version.

Is Planet Coaster 2 any good?

Overall, after an initial period of slight bafflement, we found Planet Coaster 2 a pleasingly addictive experience. Frontier has cleverly overcome much of the clunkiness that habitually accompanies such games, when you play them using a gamepad, and while the sheer variety of the elements it contains could have been intimidating, it proved compelling and exciting.

From a two-hour play-session we couldn’t assess whether its attempt at a coherent story mode will hold up, but there’s no doubt that it’s a game with a lot of longevity, since even trivial acts like placing paths felt oddly soothing and therapeutic. In terms of its console controls Planet Coaster 2 will set new standards among its peers, and the same applies to the level of detail and fine-tuning it offers. It short, it should coast to success when it launches this November.

Planet Coaster 2 – this is the Mythology theme (Frontier Developments)

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