Planet Coaster 2 review: The ride of your life, now better and wetter

Planet Coaster 2 is an ideal sequel for anyone who wants to create incredible theme parks

Planet Coaster 2 / Frontier Developments

Back when I played Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, I always had a grand vision for a wondrous water park with huge multi-level pools that people could explore, with diving boards between the layers and of course, long interweaving waterslides between all of them. However, the technology of the day put a stop to that dream, as filling a park even a third of the way would make the game virtually unplayable – at least on my family’s PC at the time.

Roughly 15 years later, it’s finally possible for that dream to become a reality in Planet Coaster 2, which advances on its predecessor in the most important area – adding water attractions and pools. The original was a revelation in terms of how modular every little detail was, allowing you to customize your rides and designs to their heart’s content, and none of that has been compromised when it comes to these new features.

If you want to spend an hour carefully repositioning lights and bushes to make everything as visually appealing as it can be, then you’ll be right at home in this sequel, with a few new tools that further deepen the unbelievable detailing that made the first game such a revelation in the genre. The main one is scaling, allowing you to increase or decrease the size of scenery, which is just another tool that helps you pull even the most specific ideas right out of your head and into the game.

Planet Coaster 2 / Frontier Developments

The scenery brush is another one that I am incredibly thankful for. No longer do I have to manually place every tree in my forest, now I can select a scenery style, adjust features like the density and brush size, and create a whole enchanted woodland scene with a few waves of my mouse.

The control scheme has been rethought too. It makes things a heck of a lot easier for controller users, though at the cost of some streamlining for keyboard and mouse users. It’s not as egregious as some of the angry Steam reviews would have you believe, but if you’ve put a lot of time into the original then you’re going to have to unlearn some stuff, or at least learn where the old options are hidden away. 

Changing something that I’m so used to is annoying, but when I gave the new system a chance I found I adapted quite quickly, and even though I don’t use a controller, some of the new keyboard and mouse changes are quite handy for quick placement and adjustment – though it is still annoying that the more in-depth stuff is now a couple of extra clicks away. If you are on a controller, then it will be only upsides compared to the original’s control scheme, with more radial menus and smoother tools for things like path drawing.

Planet Coaster 2 / Frontier Developments

Speaking of, the pathing system is so much smoother this time around. Again, veterans will need a bit of time to adjust, but this time you have so many different styles of path placement at your disposal – including the old style if you really don’t want to change. The new default line system is so easy to use, but if you don’t like it then the old style is still there, along with a direct-draw tool, and even a grid-based stamps system if you want to go back to RCT-style path placement.

Coaster design is an absolute dream now too, as it’s one of the few areas that maintained a PC-first approach to its control scheme. Creating banks, turns, raises, drops, loops, and all those fun features is a breeze with a clean UI that lets you adjust everything on the fly, and even a smooth system for adjusting sections of the track after the fact – very helpful when I accidentally make a ridiculously sharp turn that pulled 10Gs and turns my riders into red smears on the seats. Metaphorically. There’s no gore in the game, and trust me, based on my coaster designs, I’d know if there was.

The management side of things is much more in-depth this time around too. Just like coasters, you’ll need to make sure your waterslides balance excitement, fear, and nausea, and prevent people from flying off the side halfway down – it’s trickier than it looks, surprisingly. On top of that, you’ll need lifeguards to make sure the pool is safe, water filters to keep the pools clean, and power for almost all of your rides and facilities.

Planet Coaster 2 / Frontier Developments

These new features don’t bog down the flow of the gameplay though. They’re all pretty easy to manage, while adding a new layer of realism to your parks. The main challenge with these new generators and filters is finding fun ways to hide them behind scenery, making sure your guests don’t see them. However, if you’re like me and prefer to just build parks creatively with no care for how realistic they are, then the options in sandbox mode let you disable all of these features so they don’t ruin your fun.

When it comes to building grand creations in sandbox mode, the design changes I’ve mentioned up until now make things feel a lot smoother overall, though I do have some gripes. The removal of themes is annoying, while most of the items from the original are still in the game they’re now a lot harder to find in the massive menu of customization options. That brings me to my other main annoyance, the fact that said menus are not easily navigable.

There are useful filters for item types, and things are organized into categories to some degree, but the direct search tool is unhelpful. For example, if you want a barrel to put in your scene then that’s fine, as it’s just called “Barrel”, but if you want a barrel with a tablecloth on top, that’s called “Marketplace Decoration 8”, which is no help to anyone.

This isn’t a complete dealbreaker of an issue, of course, but it’s one of those little points of friction that makes things take just a little bit longer, and disrupts that sense of smoothness I was praising earlier.

Planet Coaster 2 / Frontier Developments

Still, if you’re the kind of person who’s going diving through those menus looking for tiny details to add to your park, then you’re likely also the kind of person who doesn’t mind taking their time doing so – I know that because I’m describing myself. There are still clear improvements that can be made to these systems, but there have been so many other advancements made across the board, that I’m willing to overlook the few areas that have these small annoyances.

With management games, there’s always a worry that a sequel just feels like the same game again, but prettier (hello Cities Skylines 2), however, I can say with confidence that Planet Coaster 2 avoids falling into that trap. The changes made to the game’s core systems, the additions to the management side of the game, and the new attractions like pools and flumes – which I have no doubt will be expanded upon in DLC – make this game an ideal sequel that improves on the original in almost every area.

Oh, and what about my dream pool complex, you ask? I accidentally made one of the flumes overshoot the pool and throw people at the ground…quite hard. I’m now under investigation and cannot say any more at this time.

Score: 9/10

Version tested: PC (Steam)