Planet Coaster 2 Looks Set To Make A Splash

Summary

• Water parks are now integral to park design, expanding build options for a thrilling ride in Planet Coaster 2.
• Enhanced building tools in the sequel offer more flexibility, depth, and creative potential for players.
• Community feedback has been crucial in refining features for Planet Coaster 2, showcasing Frontier's commitment to innovation.

Frontier has just revealed Planet Coaster 2, a long-awaited sequel to 2016’s Planet Coaster, and it looks like we’re in for a thrilling ride once more. Water parks are now an integral part of park design, management and build options have been expanded, and the team are pooling all their experience together to create a truly in depth game.

Game director Rich Newbold and senior executive producer Adam Woods, walked me through a hands-off preview of some of the game’s features and highlights, and answered some key questions.

Please Don’t Sleep On Parkitecht

Parkitecht is a great successor to RollerCoaster Tycoon that not enough people know about.

“We're all very keen rollercoaster fans here at Frontier,” Woods tells me. “We've got a lot of people that go to a lot of theme parks a lot of the time, and Planet Coaster is really dear to our hearts.” This sentiment shows in Frontier’s history, with both the Rollercoaster Tycoon and Thrillville theme park simulator series also being developed under its roof.

Water park features, reminiscent of those in Rollercoaster Tycoon 3’s Soaked expansion, are clearly a highlight of the trailer, and what caught my attention was just how good the water looks. “Seeing when our wonderful render programmer, John Wigg, got the waterline in, I just thought that the level of detail that is really important to us here,” Wood tells me.

Being able to put the camera in the water and see that feeling of being in it is really lovely. - Adam Woods

Getting water right is difficult, especially when it needs to match an established aesthetic, and here it’s a core feature on equal footing to the rides. “Planet Coaster 2 is about choice,” Newbold explains. “In sandbox mode, you can have water parks integrated, but it's not just about water parks or coaster parks. It's about the potential of them both being combined or having distinct areas for the park builders to focus on just one area. It's about that choice.”

When Planet Coaster was first released, the building tools felt like both a blessing and a curse. They included a huge amount of flexibility, more than any other game in the genre, but the learning curve for them was steep. I remember spending hours playing with them until I could construct my own buildings and scenery with some degree of competence.

Improving On The Original Planet Coaster

When Planet Zoo came along, using the same core game engine, UI changes and quality of life adjustments had already been added, with the development team clearly using community feedback to refine their features. This is something that looks set to continue further. “We have that legacy at Frontier of building creative management games, and taking those learnings and experiences, and adding content and features,” Newbold says. “Putting that all together and bringing it to Planet Coaster 2 has been great.”

Newbold worked on the very first Planet Coaster and Woods tells me that his first project was Thrillville: Off The Rails. Both have been at Frontier for well over a decade, as have many of the team. The studio’s specialisation has allowed it to improve and innovate in its niche over the years, and you can see the results just in the small amount of gameplay we were shown.

Adding New Building And Management Features

While it can be difficult to judge without playing, the standout build feature for me is the ability to scale and copy items using the new mirror mode. This allows you to design a pattern on a coaster car or ride, then duplicate it exactly, to keep your design symmetrical. We were shown this on a coaster car, as decor items were scaled and placed along one side, then perfectly duplicated onto the other with the click of a button.

As well as the improvements to building, management features are also far more in depth this time around. There’s a water filtration system, new power options, and a new job role as a lifeguard. Newbold also teased that there’s far more yet to be revealed.

Community is a large part of Frontier’s legacy and over the years the team have continually been amazed and delighted by the creations they come up with. “The thing I've learned is to not think that creativity or the potential of a tool has bounds,” Newbold says. “Seeing what we had, what we did, and where that has gone [in the original Planet Coaster], I've learned that there'll be stuff that I've not thought about that is possible with the tools that our community will find, and it will be great, and it'll be amazing.”

From what we’ve seen so far, amazing is the right word.

Planet Coaster 2 is due to be released in Fall 2024.

We Didn't Appreciate Physical Guides Enough

Need beautiful illustrations and laid-out instructions about the game you're playing? And it's in your hands? Well, too bad!