Planet Coaster 2 makes a splash with new focus on Water Parks

Eight years on from the original game, Frontier has announced Planet Coaster 2, which finally brings Water Park rides into the pool of attractions players can build.

11th Jul 2024 15:00

Images via Frontier

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Frontier has announced a sequel to its original theme park sandbox title in Planet Coaster 2, which will add Water Parks as a focal feature.

Eight years on from Planet Coaster’s original release, the sequel looks to innovate on those ideas from 2016 with plenty of new themes, features, and quality-of-life updates. The biggest of which is, of course, Water Parks, which were omitted from the original game in favour of more traditional rollercoasters.

Bring a sick bag

A mascot in Planet Coaster 2

Rollercoasters are all still here, of course, but Frontier was keen to show us the new Water Park rides in a recent preview. Players will be able to design all kinds of water-themed rides, from traditional flumes right down to less traditional 6-person raft rides and terrifying vertical droppers.

There’s all the customisation you could want, too, with ride paths just as malleable as their coaster counterparts, and options to make slide tunnels made from transparent plastic for that added fear factor. Players must balance their guests' excitement, fear, and nausea with each new ride they build to create a fun-filled park for everyone.

The Water Park focuses don’t just stop with the rides and are much more systemic than at first glance. You’ll need to create a new ticketing booth to allow entry and exit of the pool areas, and visitors will need places to change and shower. Pools must be kept clean and maintained, with staff types such as Lifeguards, Janitors and Mechanics.

Wet and wild

Announce 09 Lazy River WM 4K
Announce 10 Midshot Park WM 4K
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Announce 04 Waterflume WM 4K
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Frontier was keen to show us the ability to build wider plaza areas in Planet Coaster 2, as opposed to the traditional paths that made park designs in the original game a little hamstrung. You can now paint massive swathes of your park with open pavement, allowing visitors to roam more freely and reducing those pesky traffic choke points.

Outside of the Water Park additions, it seems that making your park your own will be even more simple in this latest edition. There are now scaling options for decorations, and objects can also be mounted directly onto rides to make them truly unique. An especially impressive feature was the new symmetry tool, which mirrors decorations from one side of a coaster to the other, with changes replicating in real time as you adjust one side of your design.

This all feeds into the Blueprint system, where you can download entire ride designs from other users, all from the Frontier Workshop. These can now be animated too, letting your imagination run wild as you build the park of your dreams.

Planet Coaster 2 will release on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 later this Autumn, 2024.

Joshua Boyles

About The Author

Joshua Boyles

Joshua is the Guides Editor at GGRecon. After graduating with a BA (Hons) degree in Broadcast Journalism, he previously wrote for publications such as FragHero and GameByte. You can often find him diving deep into fantasy RPGs such as Skyrim and The Witcher, or tearing it up in Call of Duty and Battlefield. He's also often spotted hiking in the wilderness, usually blasting Arctic Monkeys.

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