Planet Coaster 2 is Suprisingly Playable on the Steam Deck, But is an Uneven Sequel - First Impressions

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The game was provided by Frontier for review. Thank you!

Theme park builders might have peaked at Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, but that has not stopped others from trying! I’m rather fond of Frontier’s ‘Planet’ franchise, and Planet Coaster’s release in 2016 made my year after the disaster that was Rollercoaster Tycoon World.

Planet Coaster 2 is the long-awaited sequel, bringing some advancements and unfortunate regressions from the original. Frontier has developed it for simultaneous release on all platforms, and the design feels more suited to console over PC. This might be an advantage for the Steam Deck users, as Planet Coaster 2’s performance surprised me.

The point of Planet Coaster is creating and managing your theme park, emphasizing customization over management. With the deep creation tools, you can create many custom scenery pieces and roller coasters from scratch in almost any way you desire. Planet Coaster 2 favors style and creativity over the economy of managing a park. There are things to manage, such as traffic logistics, staff wages, and optimizing the power grid, but they have always been a side job rather than the main quest of Frontier games.

The tools for creating your park are incredibly in-depth, and there is a lot of freedom, although they take a lot of time to learn. One of the biggest problems from the original was the clunky pathing system, and I am happy to say getting around this is a lot easier in this entry.

Planet Coaster 2 does a decent job at easing newcomers in, with some fully voiced tutorials and amusing characters to teach players how the tools work. The voice acting was surprisingly good and made me chuckle while learning to play. The career mode has a couple of these tutorial ‘kid mode’ parks to mess around in, and while you unlock more features as you progress, you can still move freely around the map and explore.

I particularly enjoy entering the heads of the peeps wandering my park or tracking the roller coasters in first person. The usual management systems exist, such as keeping guests fed and happy, and you can do wicked corporate things, including adding a heavy fee for using the toilet. There are several more challenging parks to take on, including the ability to play co-op with friends and a few blank sandbox maps to curate.

Planet Coaster 2 faces several issues despite being enjoyable overall. The biggest new feature for the sequel is creating water slides and parks, but the execution is sorely lacking, with guests clipping through objects and the wonky animations. While the pathing has improved, the guest AI feels like it has had too many drinks, and they still tend to flood the park even after opening a single ride. The new interface is a mixed bag, and I found it a bit more complex than the previous entry. It should not take me several clicks just to get to a ride or a bench I like.

My greatest concern is the disparity between the two versions. Planet Coaster 2 feels unfinished, with notable features missing from the base game, like hotels, some dedicated themes, and animatronics. My idea of a good sequel is when it takes great things from the original and adds to it, not launching with fewer features. While Frontier is very receptive to player feedback and is already working on fixing some of these issues, future DLC packs may contain this content.

Planet Coaster 2 is currently Verified on the Steam Deck and has a preset. Despite its high requirements, I found it very playable. Moving around the map takes a little getting used to, but I found no problems navigating the interface and the world. Using the preset and an unmodified setup, I could hit 30 FPS fairly easily.

It is incredibly power-hungry, however, with an average power draw of 20 Watts with occasional spikes of 23 Watts, giving the LCD Steam Deck an average battery life of less than 2 hours. You can increase the graphics slightly or change the FSR upscale to quality to make the visuals sharper, but overall, it works better on the Deck than I expected.

I come away from Planet Coaster 2 with mixed emotions. The enjoyment is still there, and despite the disappointing lack of themes carried over from the base game, there are plenty of props and items to fuel your creative vision. If you enjoy creative sandboxes and are a fan of the original game, the sequel has enough bells and whistles to catch your interest. It is still playable on the Steam Deck, so it's a solid addition to your library, and we will have a more in-depth assessment in our full review coming soon.

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