Current state of the Game. March 3rd 2025.

[KuruDaza]

As of March 3rd, 2025... (Update 2) (i9 10900kf/3070/Ultra settings)

This is quite a long post as it contains my complete review and current feelings about Planet Coaster 2. I do apologize for the hints of frustration that break through in what follows seeing as I had so much hope and excitement for Cities Skylines 2 and Planet Coaster 2. Now both have essentially flopped and I'm not sure what to be excited for next.

With that said... after thousands of hours in other Planet games and growing up on Rollercoaster Tycoon, I can fairly say this game needs some serious work. It really pains me but even though they have fixed some issues, I can't recommend this game right now If you're looking for fully realistic theme park simulation that will leave you satisfied. Your game will have bugs and all kinds of issues that will break your immersion or just frustrate you to the point of exiting the game and heading to the forums. There are just dozens and dozens of things that should have been fixed in alpha or beta that have made it to release. I started a park and within 2 hours had pages of issues I had noted. Here are those issues:

- The first and most blatant issue is the Frontier workshop -
Its awful. In order for this game to flourish, Frontier has to swallow their pride and implement Steam Workshop compatibility. I'm not saying "maybe" or "it would be cool." You MUST have a steam workshop if you're expecting the kind of community engagement you had with the previous games.

- Flume Physics -
So it looks like this is getting fixed which, while I'm incredibly happy.. This should have been how they were from the start. Seeing all of these giant special pieces like the bowl and half pipe only to cringe when I saw they weren't even remotely physics based. If those pieces aren't updated to work with the new physics system for update 3, I think it might be time to uninstall and wait for Planet Coaster 3.

- Bugs and glitches are everywhere -
Guests who are completely stuck, restarting isn't even worth doing since they just get stuck again within minutes. Guests will get stuck on the edges of pools, on tables, and on benches with plenty of clearance. Lance Reddick would say "The guests come to your park and get stuck in places that will leave you confused for the rest of your lives." They will get stuck in the middle of huge plazas and in places that really make no sense If it were some kind of issue with the size of paths. Guests get stuck... and then the game barks notifications at you to which you can literally do nothing except disable notifications... because hilariously enough, the guests have an option to "Move" them but its grayed out, you cant click it for these bugged guests. This is currently a post on their ISSUE TRACKER Forums along with hundreds of other issues yet to be fixed, even things so small you wouldn't think it would take more than 1 person and 10 minutes.


- Bad design choices in tandem with aforementioned Bugs and Glitches -
Continuing the theme of guest issues - Your guests will (when large enough crowd sizes gather) start to move as one giant shifting mass and clog areas or just create very unrealistic crowd patterns. In some cases a simple missing water filter or in others, for no real reason at all, will send your entire guest population out of the park almost as if it were closed. There are problems with guest ai that make them want to walk to the farthest path in your park for no reason and then all the way back - creating congestion in areas that shouldn't have it. 1000 guests shouldn't be cutting through the narrow lazy river path only to walk to the end of the path and back. It really feels like guest ai needs a serious rework. Wandering, standing in random places, getting stuck on scenery, having no real direction - essentially creating an entirely new minigame of completely idiot proofing your paths only for the game to just shove hordes of guests into any narrow path it can getting guests stuck anyway. Unfortunately this starts to break immersion when your park is either so full its excessive or so empty it looks closed, the paths littered with bugged guests I might add. The whiplash between these two states even in sandbox is exhausting.

So you've got guests stuck all over your park and your going from full to empty every so often with not much explanation. You've finally got your scenery pieces down or your perfect pool built. Then you notice your guests are ignoring your ladder and just hoping out of the pool right next to it. You notice nobody is using the tables or the seating, maybe 1 out of 10 tables are ever full. You notice guests are bugging through coaster stations into the load zone. You notice the engineer bounces against the gate in a glitchy manor when waiting to service a ride. You notice all the overlapping textures and lighting issues with clear surfaces creating graphical bugs further breaking immersion. You notice many trees and bushes LOD change at incredibly close distances making it look like a different tree even when zooming out only slightly. You notice the guests pool floats just seem to appear and disappear randomly and not when entering/exiting a pool. You start to see all the little things they had to get right to make PC1 the gem that it is.

- The new Path System -
Its entirely unrefined and needs extensive work to avoid many of the player side bugs. I find myself constantly fiddling with the settings only to just keep clicking random things until it mostly works. It also appears that some of the menu options are just plain broken. The replacement tool for staff paths just does nothing - but those are actually not the most egregious offenses with the pathing system. You will get terrain bugs where the path you just put down has created a small triangle where you can see through the map. You will place down a path and place another close to it with the snapping options turned off yet it still snaps ever so slightly ruining any symmetry or pattern you were hoping to create.

- The UI -
This game was made for consoles. Its pretty obvious from the limitations placed on guests to the menus and snapping options making building and symmetrical construction a nightmare for some of us. Some of the pieces are just missing from grid support or you'll go to copy them and the rotation is off ever so slightly even when the grid implied it was perfectly straight. Just like the pathing system, the build menus are also full of bugs or options that just do not work. Split from building would not work when trying to remove a shop from a simple building shell. This is unfortunately the core issue with the game though. It was made for consoles and optimized for PCs. The other games were made for PC and were then ported to console after a working, solid copy of the game existed.

- Research and Utilities systems -
These are not immersive. These are not fun. Incredibly rushed and rewards do not feel like rewards. It feels like I'm playing with a tedious in game vending machine. Research is essentially a fire and forget situation where you place down one building and you spend the points it generates. No park requirements, no challenges, no creative or strategic choice, no element of randomness like the original Planet Coaster. Together with your bland management systems you get to place down utility buildings in what i can only say is one of the worst offenses to the Planet genre since they decided to take rides that should have been in the game and sell them as two separate semi expensive DLCs when the current state of the game is pretty much unplayable. These utility buildings have no cosmetic functions or feature. There is no piping where you can see the water move through the pipe to some extent.. Anything to make this dull system interesting. Its just as half-hearted as all the other "new" features.

- Huge gaping holes in game content -
So many things in Planet Coaster that didn't get carried over. Its really strange to think this is the same studio that gave us the other Planet games. I'm not sure if their team is stretched thin or If the accountants are holding all the cards but there's about 60% of a game here and tons of bugs making the final verdict about a 40%. Seeing the road map is nice but there are so many issues on the forums that haven't been addressed. Purchased just a few days ago, I couldn't get more than 2 hours into a park without stuck guests standing every few yards like they're social distancing. This is the current state of the game for high end PC users.

- Withholding Content -
I would argue that you cant just port all of Planet Coaster into Planet Coaster 2 - but that's no excuse for withholding so many things that should be in the game day 1. This is something that I honestly took personally. You built buildings, that looked like hotels, and then you rotated the camera, AND THEY WERE HOLLOW. They were facades. "Hotels don't exist!" you proclaimed almost proudly in one of the spotlights. And now we're 5 months into the game and the best we can get are these tiny little baby updates yet they're still putting that DLC right in your main menu.

- The Future -
This is a resort building game. We play these types of games to watch our guests ride our rides, slides our slides, eat at our restaurants and stay at our hotels. Its the little things that really make something shine. Seeing restaurants go from single boxes with no internals to fully modular table and room systems in Planet Zoo was so satisfying. Seeing the staff buildings that had completely furnished insides that the staff would actually use was so immersive. To lose all of that... to have it replaced with lackluster fluff like the utility system. Its really a huge blow to see the devs talk about these things like they're amazing new additions that give way to new and exciting gameplay, while completely ignoring that the game is functionally broken, lacking massive amounts of content and the roadmap updates are sorely underwhelming. There is nothing there except different ways to say "were working on physics" and a few "enhancements?" We need overhauls. You should be preparing for a massive resort themed content patch to makeup for whats missing. Western...? Okay fine, but that's one of many basic theme park scenery sets that should be in the game already. Let me give you a roadmap I think people would actually get excited for instead of just bringing in systems from other games that should have been there since day 1.

March:
- Flumes Fixed completely - physics for all slides and special pieces.
- Western Theme.
- Modular restaurants
Improvements:
- Game breaking bugs addressed including stuck guests.
- DLC prices reduced.
- Beginning of Steam workshop Integration.

April:
- Hotel/Spa Systems introduced.
- Guest water cannons.
- Mini theme: SciFi - 50 pieces, basic walls and roofs, a small collection of Alien models/unique animatronics.
Improvements:
- New shapes for path stamp and general improvements to the path tool.
- Staff buildings now function like planet zoo and have windows to see inside.
- Pool and zone capacity settings (System to address overcrowding/zone functionality.)
- Paths that require Swimwear (or require full clothes) for zoning and realism - Like staff paths.
- New proper park entrances to use instead of buses.

May:
- New Flat ride system: Mini Golf and Aquarium. (Includes 18 unique putt-putt holes and 5 unique aquarium buildings)
- Modular Gift Shops.
- Hanging Water Coaster (Sky Rider from RCT3: Soaked) with water and rotation settings.
Improvements:
- Management Menu UI improvements, Smaller window mode so you can see your park as well.
- Research system overhaul: Now research Items require an additional in game challenge to unlock for example you must have a coaster with X,Y,Z.

June:
- Modular Arcade and Street Games. (6 Unique arcade games, 3 skill based street games, Basic Street Vendor Building Pieces)
- MIni Theme: Flowers and Gardens: (Additional flowers, pots and planters, bushes, crops, and trees.)
Improvements:
- Utility system overhaul, additional visual improvements to utility buildings as well as pipes and power lines for realism if desired.
- Guest UI Improvements, Mouse over icon will display its name.

July:
- Paid DLC: Celebrations - $19.99 - A collection of coasters and flat rides from your favorite past frontier games like the Splitting Coaster, The Dizzy Dropper and the Sky Swing. New Swan Boat ride for guests to use in open bodies of water. (Includes 8 Flat rides, 2 unique rides, and 4 Coasters remastered from RCT3 Soaked & Wild.)

Or at least that's how I would do it If i were in charge. I assume the only real issue here is manpower and possibly rights issues with old rides since Atari owns RCT but all you would need to do is change the names. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Sorry for sounding a bit frustrated. I just want to see this game thrive and it feels like we have a LONG way to go.

[chris CKM]

WOW THANK YOU!!!! I could have written that as my post. Amazingly well written What a dream if this was actually happening. Im a fan of this post. Best well written one so far. You have almost all of this in my wish list post....Hope they ALL see this one at Frontier. Not that they would ever do all this at all. I was just sitting and watching a ZOO video tips guide and MAN do I miss almost all in it here on PC2. WHY would you not include great things from old titles into the new? Its just incredibly hard for me to even understand....Thanx again. I played it like 1200h-1300h now and I just quick playning it since it so boring by now with all these lacking things and bugs.. Post it on all forums so its not missed.

[grampers62]

You hit on the main issue there. The parts of the game that are just not fun. Combine that with the lack of guest immersion and interaction just kills any actual game facet and leaves this product as a scenery painter with a really poorly conceived user interface. The path systems are indeed interesting and could be quite powerful but are executed in another poor manor. Just too many issues with it to be worth the hours of fiddling about to create something that has graphics errors or is distorted as soon as anything gets placed near it.
As to content that should have been there, that's just a management issue and not really as much a design flaw. But what is there has such a feeling of incompleteness and disarray as to where it is in the ui one just gets the feeling of extreme limited content.
Yeah, the guest ai is just simply not robust enough to give a feel of them having any meaning in the product at all.

Not uninstalling yet but lack of attention to game play in the next update will likely give the axe to this product.

[Finaldest]

Kurudasa, What a fantastically written and well thought out post. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it

Fantastic. Enjoy the award.

Unfortunately we are currently stuck in frontiers echo chamber as they just refuse to address these issues.

[johnmcintyre749]

Great Post - every three days or so I check in to see if even a small fix is in, but no.

[coasterbuf]

That’s a pretty good list, although I think the timeline is a bit aggressive for all that to realistically happen in those timeframes. Also one thing on your list IS coming, just not in March like you wanted. Restaurants will be added with the April update.

[sherrylauren30]

That's a really great post I must say. Probably all of them won't be coming but I really hope some of it will be. Maybe not within July but probably throughout the rest of the year, I'll wait. 👍👍👍

[lmay]

Hello!

Thank you for taking the time to leave us such detailed feedback. I've shared your post with the team to have a read through.

We've got our next update (Update 3) on March 20th, which will include a list of fixes as well as additional content, but we're always keen to hear what the community likes/dislikes/wants to see too - thank you again!!

[AdahnGorion]

Give it a year and we might get a decent experience.
The main issue is that this was created for console players and hence was dumbed significantly down.........

They should have keept this as a PC centric title, that is where it really shines.
Until we get more fixed, there is always Planet Zoo, that game really shines.. it could have evolved even more, but its satisfying.

As you said with the little things.. the fact they went away from steams workshop to their own ruined the entire sharing experience for me.. I just don´t wanna tangle with more 3rd party engagement.. I understand that it is too include console players.. but it would be better to hold them seperate if you ask me.

[Richmuel UK]

This is the way. Thanks for writing what should be reality, but sadly isn't. I still find myself unable to fathom PC2 being so many steps back from PC1 and PZ. It's wild.

[Ranch]

This game honestly wouldve done so much better if they waited to release it. It feels it needed a solid 1-2 years extra, but at their current pace i could see it being in the state it shouldve been by end of year. I was very disappointed in this game, but im gonna see how it shapes up.

[Unrealtairo]

This pretty much nails it.

Functionality and Challenge are just missing.

Everything OP wrote is the way it should be, also bring back security & other "mishaps" adding challenge back.

Not all console players are brain dead either. Surely they'd also like a bit of challenge ;/

We live in an age where games like dark souls are among the super popular, not saying this is anything like that. But people are craving for difficult stuff in their games.

Going the opposite direction of that was definitely not the move, it needs to be more engaging & challenging. A lot more.

The only difficult thing players are dealing with right now are bugs. That's.... no.

I literally see no reason why this game shouldn't "at least" be as hard as say... Anno 1800 vs 3 3* AI if the user wants it to be.

How about a band of criminals entering we need to take care of as a park event? I mean something, anything for crying out loud.

Park events we need to "take care of" or suffer consequences, seems like a good idea imo. Toilet explosion events, lightning bolt events, risk of a coaster flying off of the rails event, I mean there is so much possible here. This is why only giving partial access in mod tools is a bad thing, if you guys aren't going to add a challenge to the game someone *cough me* else could have if not for that.......

If you guys are worried about attracting more casuals then isn't that what creative mode is for? Why is hard mode just as easy as creative mode in PC2?........

[abletudu]

The main things I would want in the next update is Steam Workshop and more free coasters! I looked at the Thrill Seekers DLC and to put it mildly was not Thrilled with it. It only included 2 coasters and 3 flat rides. We got more in the DLC's for Planet Coaster 1. Is Frontier going to nickle and dime us to death with wimpy DLC's?

Granted we got a few pools with flumes and a very little bit of specialized scenery along with a few coasters, but what we got was nothing to write home about.

[Chef0Death88]

Still havent fixed the economy. Shops dont pay for stock and inventory STILL!

[KuruDaza]

Originally posted by Chef0Death88:

Still havent fixed the economy. Shops dont pay for stock and inventory STILL!

Interesting, seemed like money was a bit too easy to make and I did notice some things I placed or used were just free.

[[PC]Roco45]

Yea the Frontier Workshop has got to go, or at least the Steam Workshop needs to come back with the Frontier one being just an option for console engagement.

Also the size of the maps and the guest limit are complete deterrents for me to even boot up the game anymore as well as the lack of scenery items. Frontier needs to stop downgrading the PC experience because of consoles, I won't support a DLC or another product from them if they continue to do so, I didn't buy every single Planco 1 DLC and PZ just for them to screw me over because I play on PC.