Planet Coaster 2 review: Specs
Platforms: PC, PS5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X
Price: $49 / £39 / AU$75
Release Date: November 6, 2024
Genre: Management Simulator
It took me more than an hour to complete a single objective in the Planet Coaster 2 tutorial. I can assure you this wasn’t a skill issue. As somebody who put dozens of hours into Planet Coaster: Console Edition on PS5, I’m pretty bullish about my park-building skills and extremely familiar with the game’s intricate (occasionally overwhelming) menu system.
The introductory level in question tasked me with constructing a swimming pool of a set size. I could have completed this objective in seconds by slapping down a basic square-shaped pool and moving to my next objective. Instead, I spent ages meticulously crafting the perfect pool with a watchful lifeguard, plenty of sun loungers and even a diving board.
That’s the genius of the Planet Coaster franchise in a nutshell. It’s a game where you lose hours obsessing over the small details like how many benches to place around your park, or how much more to charge a guest who wants extra pickles on their cheeseburger. And that’s before you get to the big decisions like how many loops to add to your flagship rollercoaster.
Planet Coaster 2 retains that same delightful sense of creative freedom, letting you build the theme park of your dreams, and spend hours upon hours making sure every single element is exactly to your liking. Plus, now you can do all that with the addition of water parks. Read on for my full Planet Coaster 2 review, where I’ll dive into this fantastic theme park simulator.
Planet Coaster 2: The Basics
- What is it? Planet Coaster 2 is the latest management simulation game from Frontier Developments. You are given free rein to create the theme park of your dreams by designing rollercoasters, scenery and much more.
- Who is it for? Creative types will get the most out of Planet Coaster 2, but anybody who loves a day out at a good theme park will find plenty to enjoy.
- What’s the price? The standard edition of Planet Coaster 2 costs $49. The deluxe edition costs $64 and includes the Vintage Funfair Ride Pack.
- What other games has the developer made? Frontier Developments is a titan in the management simulator genre making not only Planet Coaster but also sister series Planet Zoo and the Jurassic World Evolution games.
- What games is this similar to? Planet Coaster 2 is reminiscent of the classic RollerCoaster Tycoon games, but fans of more modern titles such as Cities: Skyline and Prison Architect will also find themselves at home.
Making a serious splash
The big new addition in Planet Coaster 2 is the ability to create water parks. As somebody who spent much of their childhood playing RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Soaked, this was always my dream addition.
Building a rudimentary swimming pool is very straightforward, and you’re given plenty of extra customization options including adding diving boards, wave machines and lifeguard stations. If you want to create a pool that doesn’t conform to a standard shape, you’ll have to use the draw tool, which is powerful, but a little finicky. A more comprehensive tutorial would have helped. Instead, what’s offered only covers the basics.
Adding colorful flumes to your pool is equally easy, and the flume construction tool is the same as the one used to create rollercoasters. This was a smart move considering that Planet Coaster’s ride construction tools are pretty much the best in the business. In a matter of seconds, you can create a functioning slide, but if you take your time and sweat the small details, you’ll be rewarded with final results that will have guests queueing up in droves.
You are also given the freedom to mix a theme park and a water park. You can have elaborate setups that involve coasters speeding above swimming pools or even flumes and rides intermingling. Mixing coasters and flumes probably wouldn’t pass health and safety standards in reality, but a speeding minecart looping over a water slide does look pretty cool.
Become a professional park builder
I’ve always been a goal-oriented player in management games. Because of that, I naturally, gravitate to the career mode in Planet Coaster. The sequel has done an impressive job of making this part of the experience even more engaging.
Each career mode level drops you in a pre-built park (usually in some state of disrepair) and sets several objectives that get increasingly more challenging as you progress through the ranks. Tasks range from the simple, like hiring a couple of new janitors or building a coaster that meets specific criteria, to the more complex like having guest happiness levels remain above a specific percentage for a set period, or increasing your overall park star rating.
In Planet Coaster 2, each career mode level offers a new top medal rank, “Platinum” (which is preceded by Bronze, Silver and Gold). This provides the sternest test for veterans. Even achieving Platinum on the first career mode level took me a couple of hours, but the end result was rewarding. Plus, new customizable difficulty options allow you to tailor the experience if you’d rather blast through career mode levels without too much resistance.
I also appreciated that earning Bronze and Silver medals now requires you to complete more objectives on average than in the first Planet Coaster. This stops you from barrelling through the initial ranks within a matter of minutes and helps make career levels last a little longer.
Freed from restrictions
If you’d rather just build without any financial constraints, or the need to worry about guest or staff demands, you can head over to the Sandbox mode and create from a blank canvas. I find being faced with a vast empty plot of land quite intimidating (it’s why I prefer to build on a pre-existing base), but Sandbox will be the favorite mode of ultra-creative players.
Sandbox is also extremely customizable. You can opt to have no restrictions whatsoever, or you can, for example, have unlimited money but still have to manage guest expectations and staff morale levels. Alternatively, you can opt for a challenge run where you start from scratch but still have limited funds. Planet Coater 2 really does cater to all play styles.
That desire to appeal to all types of players also includes those who prefer playing online. The new Franchise mode lets you and a group of friends construct a park together, each adding elements to create a collaborative masterpiece. However, the appeal of Franchise mode seems pretty niche as it requires constant communication and dedicated builders.
Small things add up
I have no major issues with Planet Coaster 2. Instead, problems arise in the form of several small annoyances that gradually add up to blemish what could have otherwise been a nearly perfect sequel.
The biggest of these is the new pathing tool. I appreciate that Frontier wants to give you more control over where you can place paths and queue lanes, but the system is overly finicky (at least, on console). Often, I felt like I fought the controls just to create simple paths and plazas. Things get even worse when you add elevation into the mix. Stairs are a chore to build.
Speaking of paths, AI pathfinding is poor. Thousands of guests will stream into your park and then clump together in the same spaces. Plus, a lot of guests seem to love ignoring rides in favor of walking about for hours and then leaving without having ridden a single attraction.
The menus can sometimes feel a bit intimidating and convoluted. While I was able to navigate them with relative ease thanks to my hours in Planet Coaster, I imagine a newcomer might struggle to locate key tools. On the subject of newcomers, the overall learning curve is steep, and the tutorial levels do a poor job of preparing inexperienced players.
Also, including power and water management features (introduced in Planet Zoo) is by no means a fatal flaw — but they cross over the line from engaging micromanagement into tedious busywork. It turns out that having to constantly hook up new generators just isn’t very fun.
At home on console
The management simulation genre is largely synonymous with computers, and typically these games play best on the PC platform. Planet Coaster is no exception, PC is the best place to play, but credit should go to Froniter for making Planet Coaster 2 more than viable on a console.
Yes, you cannot quickly zip between submenus as you can while using a mouse, but the controls have been masterfully reworked to fit on a controller. I never felt like I was getting a seriously diminished experience by opting to play Planet Coaster 2 on a console. However, if you’d rather use a keyboard and mouse, the console edition also supports them.
Planet Coaster 2 also looks fantastic on PS5 (and even better on PS5 Pro, which I switched to midway through the review process). The visuals are vibrant and colorful, and the realistic water physics are impressive. Plus, a huge shout out to the jolly menu music which is so charming that I found myself regularly sitting at the title screen for minutes just so I could hum along.
Planet Coaster 2: Verdict
Planet Coaster 2 retains everything I loved about its predecessor. It makes some subtle but impactful improvements and also adds the one feature I was desperately wishing for in the form of water parks. As far as sequels go, you can’t ask for much more than that. Planet Coaster 2 is now the definitive theme park management experience on every platform.
However, as much as I like Planet Coaster 2 right now, I can’t help but imagine how much I might love the game it could be in a year or two. If the minor (but noticeable) rough edges can be sanded down with post-launch patches, and the game is well supported with (reasonably priced) content packs, Planet Coaster 2 could become even more special.
