Planet Coaster 2 Review — Franchised Fun

Planet Coaster 2 is the sequel to the modern amusement park management game. It’s the first of its kind I’ve played since RollerCoaster Tycoon 3; I was excited to give it a try and wasn’t disappointed. With the depth of park management and coaster building available, I practically had to pull myself away to write this review and will probably go right back when I’m done.

Planet Coaster 2 has real mechanical depth but is pretty simple to understand. Whether in the campaign, sandbox, or franchise modes (the last being my favorite, but I’ll touch on that later), your goal is straightforward: build, manage, and maintain coasters, staff, and the overall park to create a successful amusement park.

Right off the bat, it’s a fun premise and one that’s hard to mess up. Simple management mechanics and some decent coasters and decorations can make for a passable, fun game. Planet Coaster 2, however, goes above and beyond “simple” with deep, but not necessarily complex, management mechanics.

By that, I mean there’s a lot you can and must do to keep your park (or parks—again, more on that later) running smoothly and efficiently. Beyond simply setting up rides, the fundamentals of how your park operates are entirely up to you. However, even with the depth of the mechanics, they never feel complicated. I was able to figure out how to run everything smoothly (to a degree), which is saying something because charts and graphs make my head hurt.

Rides themselves require a fair degree of micromanagement. Rides must be built, either from scratch or with a preset, with an entrance queue, an exit path, and a priority pass line if you choose. They must then be connected to a power grid, tested, have their pricing set up, and then be tested again and assigned staff before opening to the public. Then, rides must undergo routine maintenance, and their entry price must balance with their prestige and appeal.

When your first ride starts to deteriorate, or your first lines start forming due to a lack of employees, you realize the importance of managing your workers and their schedules. This is another deep yet easy-to-understand mechanic that can make or break a park, allowing you to manage employee shifts so that no area is ever unattended. Employees must also be given accommodations, breaks, and everything else you’d expect from a human-rights-compliant workplace.

When you aren’t managing the deep economic simulation, you can engage in coaster building or decoration. The former is a deeply satisfying and surprisingly complex system, allowing you to truly build a track to your specifications. There’s a variation in the types of coasters, too. I was particularly fond of making water coasters, which are also my favorite to ride.

Decorating is also a system with a lot of depth but isn’t overwhelming. You can place each piece in your expansive decoration kit as you like or use brushes to cover areas easily. You can, of course, edit the terrain and even build structures from scratch. I often used the “Viking” pre-fabricated buildings, as the rustic look fits my park’s vibe.

The game’s wealth of mechanics makes building a park fun, and the campaign mode offers challenges you won’t find in the sandbox. However, franchise mode quickly became my favorite way to play, adding a deep metagame.

Franchise mode challenges you to build not just one amusement park but a franchise. Starting with one park anywhere in the world, you have limited resources and are tasked with turning a profit, then expanding, building multiple successful parks to create a successful franchise. While I didn’t explore the multiplayer aspect much, I believe franchise mode also allows other players to build parks within your franchise if you invite them, letting you create an amusement megacorporation that would put Disney to shame.

I knew I was in for a ride with Planet Coaster 2, but I was delightfully surprised by the depth of the mechanics, how easily I learned them, and how much the game does to make park building exciting and fun. If you have an itch left over from the first Planet Coaster, Planet Coaster 2 will do much more than scratch it.

Try Hard Guides received a PC review code for this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Planet Coaster 2 is available on Steam, Epic Games, PlayStation, and Xbox.