New Planet Coaster 2 deep dive explains how you’ll need to sell your idiot guests sunscreen in case they blame you for the sun existing

Having a list of Suffolk amusement park mascots one desperately wishes to outlive out of an innate desire for revenge is, I imagine, not a universal experience. Still, on the day Pleasurewood Hills mascot Woody Bear is taken by the soil, I will jig and whoop under the moon. I actually cannot remember when the beef started, but my mum reliably informs me that I was terrified to tears by this bear as a child. He yet survives, but mark my words: when the Woody Copters finally fall from their rusted hinges, I will salt the earth.

Happily, I didn’t spot any bear mascots in Planet Coaster 2’s new deep dive trailer.

The big ticket (whey!) new feature in this sequel to 2016’s theme park management game is water parks, which can co-exist with your more traditional theme parks, peaceful creatures that they are. You’ll have the expected expansive toolkit for making your slides. Just like the coasters from the original, getting real wiggly with it does run the risk of causing nausea in your guests, so you’ll need to balance your Daedalusian tube-hubris with at least a modicum of consideration for their preferences.

Life guards are a new staff type, and you’ll be able to assign them to specific pools and areas. You can’t run a park on flawless safety records, however, so you can plonk down inflatable sellers, ticketing booths, and other cash siphons to monetise every aspect of your guest’s vacation. Has anyone done an expansion to one of these park sims where you can follow a guest home to watch them morosely budget next year’s family holiday, desperately trying to flog all the park tat they bought on eBay to afford extra petrol money and car sarnies? Sounds like a right laugh. Get on that, industry. Until then, we’ve at least got simulated changing rooms for speedy speedo switching, which you’ll need to lay out carefully to keep the flow of walking wallets running smoothly.

Guests in Planet Coaster 2, says the devs, will be more varied and diverse, and you’ll also get more feedback as to whether they’re enjoying themselves. You’ll also need to make sure they’ve got access to things like suncream and shade, since they can now get sunburn if the weather’s too hot.

‘Flat rides’, such as teacups, will offer more creative options, like scenery and attaching blueprints directly to rides. Frontier say they’ve “pared back” some of the complexity from certain rides, to allow more space for customisation.

Much of the rest of the video shows new, impressive rides that I’m mostly certain I will never be able to get working properly. They look good though! You’ll be able to personally spiff up coaster cars, too, with QOL tools like twinning and mirroring to save you adding bits individually. Lastly, the video mentions the need for water filtration in your pools, which get dirtier over time.

Given Planet Coaster’s exceptionally dedicated and talented modding community, there’s a good chance the theme you want won’t take long to show up on the Steam workshop, if it isn’t in the game already. I’ll never miss an opportunity to share this outstanding Aliens ride. Earlier in the year, Frontier teased three “creative management sim” games, one of which is a new entry in their Jurassic World series. Assuming Planet Coaster 2 is another, that leaves one more. Two Point don’t look to be reviving Dungeon Keeper any time soon, so may I humbly suggest Planet Dungeon? I say "humbly," I mean aggressively. Do it.