Planet Coaster 2 Developer Interview

GamesRadar

We spoke to the team behind the upcoming Planet Coaster 2, a theme park simulation game where you make all manner of rides, and even your own water park. As part of the interview, we went on Thorpe Park's Hyperia, which was interesting...  Planet Coaster 2 available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.  Video by Hal Dimond

Transcript

00:00Panic Coaster 2 is right around the corner. Frontier Development's latest theme park

00:04management sim boasts new themes, mechanics and above all the addition of water parks.

00:10To celebrate Frontier invited us to none other than Thorpe Park on a sunny English day to talk

00:16with them about their long-awaited sequel. There was one catch though, for at least our first chat

00:20they wanted to talk on one of Thorpe Park's rides, specifically their most recent record-breaking

00:26coaster, Hyperia. Standing at 72 meters tall and reaching speeds of up to 80 miles an hour,

00:32it was a daunting prospect. As senior producer Adam Woods and I buckled in, only one question sprang to

00:38mind. How much do you really like roller coasters? I didn't say it was a good question. I really,

00:44I really like roller coasters. Yeah? How does that sort of tie into developing a roller coaster game?

00:50Well it's a bit of a dream come to isn't it? The only other thing I could do is design roller coasters,

00:55but I can do that in Planet Coaster 2. So I can take a roller coaster, I could be inspired by

01:01Hyperia here today at Thorpe Park, jump on Planet Coaster 2, jump into sandbox mode and try any of the

01:08either returning, some of the returning favorites from the original game or some of the new roller coasters.

01:13Yeah, yeah. Have you got a, what's your favorite roller coaster to try and remake and see if you can answer it now?

01:19I would like to try and recreate. Cool, the rain's quite stinging. Yeah, it's a bit of a chill. I would

01:31quite like to recreate Vampire from Chessington World of Adventures because that was my

01:41first big roller coaster as a young child that I got to go on. Lovely. So it holds a special place in

01:49your heart. Cool. I'll tell you what viewers, this rain at 80 miles an hour, it hurts. It's a slap, isn't it?

01:59That's a new one, I haven't done it in the rain yet. That stings, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, right in the eyes.

02:05I'm sure that's a bit of a Atolian. Feet firmly back on the ground, we retired to the Event Hall,

02:13where we were given more hands-on time with Planet Coaster 2. Frontier put us to work,

02:17as Woods alluded to, challenging us to recreate Hyperia. As a total Planet Coaster novice,

02:23my attempt was fine, but content creator Digital Dan's much more accurate effort stole the show.

02:35Finally, as the day came to a close, I sat down with creative director Rich Newbold to talk over

02:44the finer details. Rich, thank you very much for joining and thank you guys for having us.

02:48It's been a great day. Obviously, we're here to talk about Planet Coaster 2 and probably the biggest

02:55new addition is the water parks. How challenging, if any, has it been balancing the pre-existing

03:02roller coaster mechanics with the new water parks system?

03:06With the water parks, we did have to consider how it impacts the way that people build their

03:10theme parks. We don't have parks that are just, the player doesn't have to build water parks,

03:14doesn't have to build just theme parks, you can build them together. So the consideration was how

03:18we adjust the economy to allow players to do that. If they wanted to just build a water park,

03:22making sure that we have infrastructure in place for your guests to buy their tickets,

03:27buy the inflatables, so you can still monetize the water parks and that experience that you're

03:30building. So the consideration on the water parks and the management side was how it fits in with

03:34the systems that we already had with the roller coaster and the rides and the shops you already

03:38had. And on the creative side, it was how you're going to build these things. How are you going to

03:41build these big open bodies of water? Basically, that was a system that we didn't have in the

03:45original Planet Coaster. It was coasters or flat rides. And we created a new system of building these,

03:51we call them volumes of those kind of open areas for pools. And that's something we then fed into

03:55the path system as well. So we rebuilt the path system from the original one, it's now much easier

04:00and quicker to build long bits of paths, but you can also build those plazas. And the way that we

04:05tackled the creation of a swimming pool was something we then fed back into the path system as well,

04:09because we wanted both of those creative tools to feel very similar. And whether you're building a pool

04:13or a path, as they kind of look to you in the game, they're very similar in size. So that's how we,

04:19the consideration of adding waterpots to the game was on the management side, but also on the creative

04:24side as well. Talking of the sort of pre-existing systems and everything, what do you think is the

04:30most improved aspect that was already there in the first game? On the creative side was where we

04:36focused some effort on taking those amazing creative systems that we had in the original one,

04:41we saw these wonderful creations that people took the themes and the ability to create blueprints on

04:46their coasters and their parks and saw how they were taking those scenery pieces and using them in ways

04:51that we hadn't envisioned them being used and creating something that looked amazing visually.

04:55That's where we put a lot of effort in and creating what new systems that can we add to

04:59that that really allow people to be even more creative. So we have five new themes, but we've got

05:04also the ability for you to put those scenery pieces directly onto a flat ride and a rollercoaster

05:09car as well. And it will move around with those as well. So those theming opportunities,

05:13those creative opportunities, by taking these new scenery pieces and attaching them directly to a

05:17coaster car and watching it move around your track with those attached to it or animating off it or

05:21you've got your signs on it was something we put a lot of effort on. And that feedback we had from

05:25players of we want to have the ability to scale the size of things. So now on some of the scenery

05:29pieces you can adjust the scaling as well. So you're combining those two systems together and the new

05:34scenery. I'm just really looking forward to what people do on their theme parks, but also on the

05:38rides themselves and just see how they take the kind of the flat rides that we've we spent some time

05:43taking away some of the detailed theming that the version in the original Planet Quest might have.

05:47So it's a bit more plain, more vanilla, so that you can now add your own theming to in a much easier

05:53way as well. So depending on where you want to put it in your park, you have that flexibility now of

05:58I'm going to put this in my mythology section, I'm going to put all the mythology pieces on it,

06:01because it's more of more of a blank canvas. So we want to make sure that the the more creative

06:05players had a lot more tools and capabilities to see what they came up with. Gotcha. Well, sounds amazing.

06:10So it's obviously been quite a while since Planet Coaster 1, and you had a couple of a few titles

06:16in between there. You obviously had Planet Zoo and you have the Jurassic Park, Jurassic World,

06:20sorry, Evolution games. Are there any lessons that you learned from developing those titles that you

06:25put into place with Planet Coaster 2? Yeah, with Planet Coaster 2, it's a multi-platform game,

06:30which the original Planet Coaster wasn't. That was PC to begin with, and then we released Planet Coaster

06:34console later on. Because this is a multi-platform game, we took some of the learnings we had from

06:39Jurassic World Evolution 2, which was a game I was game director on, on how we build systems,

06:43build feedback into players and input systems that allow you to manage your parks if you're

06:48playing mouse and keyboard or on pad at the same time, launching at the same time. And also adding

06:54ways for people to share their creations, their blueprints, cross-platform as well. And that's

06:59something that we built upon in the original Planet Coaster. It was the Steam workshop, it was all PC,

07:04but in this we have Frontier Workshop, which is a multi-platform sharing mechanism. So now,

07:08if a player creates something that looks amazing on PC, the PlayStation 5 players can download that

07:13after the workshop and put it into their park as well. So bringing those learnings and how we build

07:17these games, multi-platform at launch at the same time, and providing tools and methods for people

07:23to see the information, different interface scales. So if you like your HUD to be kind of bigger because

07:28you're playing further away, like you do on a traditional on-account experience, you might want

07:32it to be a bit larger, but having that ability to manually adjust it to be smaller if you're going to play on

07:36your desk. So there's a lot of systems, like infrastructure systems we took a lot of learning

07:40from, but on the management side and the creative side, it's looking at ways people want to have

07:44access to the different buttons or the different shortcuts as well, and making sure they're accessible,

07:49regardless if you're on a mouse and keyboard or a pad. So something like the radial menus,

07:54so the ability, which was something we took from building Planet Coaster console and Planet Zoo

07:58console at Frontier and going, right, we're going to need this from day one for Planet Coaster 2,

08:04but it's also something that's not just for pad. If you're playing on mouse and keyboard,

08:07there's a way to access that radio menu as well, which is also, and then like quick access,

08:11so that was some of the learnings we took. What are you most excited about players experiencing

08:17when Planet Coaster 2 drops? Yeah, for me, it's that it's the creative potential that our community

08:21has shown in the past of taking the themes that we have, the scenery pieces, and then using them to

08:26build new things. Water parks is a great addition, it's a very vibrant new looking addition as well to the

08:33parks that you're building, so you've got these big open blue bodies of water that visually look

08:36great, having those amazing body flumes, so different types of flumes, raft flumes,

08:42inner tube flumes, but the way that they look is a new type of visual, they have a distinctive look,

08:46they're very vibrant colours, the tubes, this transparency, I just, I'm looking forward to seeing

08:51how people add those additions to their existing theme park creations that they're building in Planet

08:56Coaster 2, taking that stuff and then layering in the water parks as well if they want.

08:59So, are you excited to get your hands on Planet Coaster 2? What aspect are you looking forward to

09:09stretching your creative muscles most? Let us know below and make sure to stick with Games Radar

09:14for the latest news, previews and more.

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