Planet Coaster 2 revealed with water parks and multiplayer park-building for 2024 release
First trailer makes a few waves
"It's going to be a good, good, good, good day," sings Frontier's announcement trailer for theme park simulator Planet Coaster 2. Not for me it isn't, because now I have to compare my shabby flat, in which there are exactly zero waterslides at the time of publication, with Planet Coaster 2, in which you can expect such aquatic attractions as "meandering lazy rivers", "adrenaline-pumping wave pools", "looping flumes" and "exhilarating water coasters". Please watch the trailer while I yet again revisit the possibility of sneaking into Stoke-On-Trent's Waterworld and trying to pass myself off as the resident ghost.
Planet Coaster 2 is due for release in fall 2024, falling being what happens to your chirpy Pixar-plastic guests if you get a bit too excited when plotting out the ole' loop-de-loops. It'll be available on Epic Games Store and Steam, and yes, vertiginous watery delights are the major addition, but we can also expect new land-based themepark rides, new park themes such as Viking ("rustic", apparently?) and new flavours of scenery. They're also promising expanded park management tools, multiplayer park-building, and the ability to create "exciting animatronics shows using the new event sequencer tool".
The original Planet Coaster came out in 2016, and was hailed by Fraser Brown (RPS in PCGamer) as "a game that inspired me to spend an entire hour constructing a toilet". It features on our lists of the best non-violent video games, the best management games, and the best building games. The sequel has big boots to fill, but it's gotten off to a fine start by saturating my eyes and brain with sultry imagery of coruscating, coloured tubes of H2O. We'll try to get you one of those "preview" things as soon as we can.