MAKING A SPLASH

How PLANET COASTER 2 is upgrading the theme park sim genre like never before.

- Robert Jones

Theme park simulators have long made their home on PC. From the now legendary Theme Park, created by Peter Molyneux back in 1994, to Frontier Developments' 2016 hit Planet Coaster, this genre taps into much of what makes PC gaming so great, letting gamers flex their creative and, yes, management skills in one of the most fun environments possible.

But making a good theme park simulator, as with any building sim, is not easy and, as history has shown us, there have been plenty of failures along the way. Only last year, for example, did Park Beyond, a new theme park sim published by Bandai Namco fail to launch, with PC Gamer's review stating it offered "a limp campaign and serious lack of depth". For a simulator, these failings felt like a grievous mistake as, to me at least, they're critical to what makes the best sims shine.

It's now late August 2024 and I'm travelling to Cambridge, England, to go hands-on with Frontier Developments' brand new theme park simulator, Planet Coaster 2, as well as speak with its lead developer, Rich Newbold. The first game was well received by PC Gamer, with Planet Coaster very much acting as the spiritual successor to the RollerCoaster Tycoon series (Frontier Developments made RollerCoaster Tycoon 3). It also rapidly created a lively community of fans online, becoming the theme park sim of note. However, PC Gamer's review score of 75 percent pointed to a game that could offer even more.

So, keen to learn how this sequel was building on the great original experience, I ask Newbold what the vision was with Planet Coaster 2.