REVIEW: ‘Planet Coaster 2’ Is Fun But With A Harsh Learning Curve (PC)

Planet Coaster 2, developed and published by Frontier Developments, is an amusement park simulator that tasks players with entertaining the masses with rides, food, and fun. But there is more to running a park than just the attractions. Players will find their hands full with the many tasks the game sets before them as they build original parks or face predesigned challenges.

The core elements of Frontier Developments’ latest park simulator are straightforward and fun. At a glance, laying down paths, building attractions, and setting up the infrastructure to keep the park and the guests running smoothly is an engaging exercise. Everything is colorful with a bit of humor layered into every visual element, keeping the game’s atmosphere light-hearted. However, new players will quickly find things in their park aren’t going the way they should. And most likely they will have no idea why.

The closest thing that Planet Coaster 2 offers to a tutorial is its Career Mode. While the prologue for this portion of the game delivers a proper tutorial for the game’s most basic elements, from there on, it gives players a guided to-do list that will make them figure things out, just in the least helpful way. Small tasks like opening a guest service station become frustrating when you build one expecting that to be enough to fulfill the requirement, only to discover it isn’t. There is more to it than that, though what else needs doing is not clear at all.

The roller coaster creator is the steepest part of Planet Coaster 2’s unforgiving learning curve. The game features a robust coaster design suite but no instruction on how to make a functioning roller coaster. Using real-world physics, players can’t just throw a track together in a fun path and hit go. A test run will likely reveal that your car won’t make it around that cool loop due to a lack of momentum. Neither does the game explain that you need to use a chain track to pull the car up inclines when the car doesn’t possess the momentum to do so. That something this complicated doesn’t at least come with a solid glossary of some kind is a choice that will likely have many new players throwing their hands up in frustration long before they’ve built their dream ride.

While these design choices will make the game a hard sell for new players, some elements can help smooth the ride out a little. Planet Coaster 2 gives players a slew of options on how deep they wish to dive into the simulation elements. When starting a custom park, players can choose to switch off several of the game’s management elements, allowing them to control how much they want.

Once you get past the initial struggles of figuring out how everything works, there is a lot of fun to be had. The game gives players tons of options for every element of their park. From customizing pathways to the decorations they scatter around, virtually everything is highly adaptable. Alerts let players know when things are breaking or visitors are getting upset about something so problems can be addressed promptly.

The biggest addition to this sequel is the option to include water elements in your parks. You can build log flumes, pools (of multiple varieties), and lazy rivers, giving players more options for attractions. Along with the new water elements come support structures. Changing rooms must be present for visitors to prep for their swim, while water pumps and filters ensure water attractions stay topped up and clean.

The designers at Frontier Developments went into incredible detail crafting the world the player gets to build in. So naturally, there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy the world as it plays out. Zooming in close reveals lots of little interaction taking place across the park. Mascots greet visitors and ride patrons celebrate a great run on their favorite attraction. Players also get to experience their rides firsthand. Planet Coaster 2 allows players to see what their visitors see by putting them on the rides via a first-person view camera. This delivers a fun side experience. It is especially rewarding when riding on one of your homemade creations.

While riding your original attractions is a blast, fun is always better when shared. To that end, the game allows players to upload their creations for other players to use. So, if a player is disinclined to craft something of their own, they’ll likely find plenty of options once the community starts loading original content.

Planet Coaster 2 has a lot of fun and engaging elements—if you can take the time to figure it all out. Between the lack of clarity on some elements to inconsistency in application between buildings, the game makes players earn their fun. But if you endeavor to preserve, fun will be your reward.

Planet Coaster 2 is available on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 on November 6th.