Planet Coaster 2 review: a good water park is hard to build

Annoying sliders

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Frontier Developments

• Developer: Frontier Developments
• Publisher: Frontier Developments
• Release: Nov 6th
• On: Windows
• From: Steam Epic Games
• Price: £40/$50/€50
• Reviewed on: Intel Core-i7-11700F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, Windows 10

Theme park management sim Planet Coaster was all about making roller coasters that would push your park guests to the edge of puking up their overpriced burgers while making sure the excitement levels of your twisting rides remained high. Planet Coaster 2 wants to do that again, but this time adds water parks into the mix, with slides to design, pools to plop down, and raft rides that you can click together to form ambitiously speedy spirals. You can feel some creative pride when you look down on the watery wonderland you’ve made with these tools. But you may also wonder if it was worth the effort. As a newcomer to Planet management games , I’ve found this slippy sequel fiddly, cumbersome, and poorly explained.

A big selling point is the modular building you can do. Basically, you get a library of individual pieces included in the menus, and you can click them together to create new buildings in which to house the toilets for your guests, the changing rooms, or pizza stands. This goes for decorating your park too, with a big chunk of the menus devoted to trees, rocks, and props themed on Vikings or classical architecture. Not only this, but each water slide and coaster can be built piece by piece, twisting and turning over the heads of your guests according to your whims.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Frontier Developments

It’s a good idea on paper. I enjoy pulling and pushing together winding vomit comets, or manipulating water flumes into increasingly perilous spirals - they feel like a good use of your creative time. But jamming basic drink shops into prefab casings to make them a little more presentable, by contrast, feels like fiddlesome busywork hampered by menus that are a nuisance to navigate.

For context I normally love building and creating stuff using game tools (I’ve made entire maps in Halo’s Forge mode, for example). And an earlier hands-on with this soaking sequel had me excited about making my own funloving aqualand. But on a deeper playthrough there’s something fundamentally unintuitive to me about the menus and user interface, which makes learning and understanding the game’s many quirks a pain. At any moment in Planet Coaster 2, I am deeply unsure of what part of the screen I need to click.

There are YouTubers out there doing the good work of explaining all this stuff , but it doesn’t stop the meter tweaking and box ticking from feeling like a chore to me. Those more dedicated to the waterpark of their dreams (or those more familiar and patient with the UI of Frontier’s other Planet games) will get more out of it. But even they might wonder if it’s worth losing many other themed pieces from the first Planet Coaster, which have been left out in this sequel, probably to ensure that they can be later sold for DLC.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Frontier Developments

Still, you don’t have to actually clickybuild things yourself. You can instead press a big button labelled the “Frontier workshop” to scroll through the creations of other players, all available to download. You’ll find huge coasters that dive into the mouth of an Arrakis sandworm, for example, or an ornate Roman bath house facade, ready to be filled with the wave pools and diving docks of your choice. But even this archive of filtersome goods feels like a clunkier version of what players from the previous game enjoyed via the Steam workshop.

The campaign mode (often the place where management games like to disguise their tutorials) spends more time indulging whimsical characters having family-friendly small talk than actually showing you the ins and outs of the UI. Characters will share jokes, flirt, and - for some reason - establish deep lore about the Planet Coaster universe. I understand the desire to add some cartoon personality to a genre that is mostly about numbers and big picture planning. But it also slows down the flow of useful information (your goals or learning objective) as you wait for a surprisingly large cast of characters to finish their little skit. You can skip their chatter, but then you’ll be left none the wiser as to why you’re doing any of the stuff summarised in the objectives menu.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Frontier Developments

In the end, most campaign missions are not really learning exercises at all. Or, if they are, they become increasingly hands-off, inviting confusion and a lot of menu-exploring guesswork. It’s often unclear what the game wants from you, and the freedom it gives you in these scenarios varies so much that you run up against artificial limitations as you search for the solution. You might be tasked to complete a rollercoaster which has a few missing parts. But you can’t edit or delete parts of the existing track, only add new parts. Another task might have you place down a new roller coaster. But you’ve already filled all available space with flat rides from a previous task. Can you buy new land? No, that’s not allowed yet. The real solution is to individually bulldoze each tree and each rock in one tight spot and squeeze the ride into the space left behind.

This holding back of certain features is probably the result of the campaign trying to teach you its various tools of building in a piecemeal way. But it more often just ends up feeling like the game wants you to play “the right way” without explicitly saying what that right way is. Imagine an art teacher putting 30 brushes in front of you and saying: “Art is all about creativity! Let’s learn!” then when you reach out for the broad bristly brush, they say: “Not that one.”

The game’s penchant for micromanagement takes on some tedious aspects elsewhere, like having to navigate into the menu of every guest services kiosk to click “open” before it will actually do its job. What does this extra step add to the game? It’s only three clicks, sure, but it’s the same joyless three clicks every time. It makes sense for the rides to be tested before you open them, but does a burger stand really need a grand opening every time you build one?

All the fiddliness of the campaign caused me to abandon it early in favour of the sandbox mode, where you can mercifully give yourself infinite cash, and choose whether or not you want to bother with power and water filtration networks. By default you basically have to place these generators and pumps throughout the park to spread a colour-coded glow that denotes your pools and rides have sufficient electricity and clean water (imagine the underlying water and electricity maps of Prison Architect , but with less need to be precise). I played with these switched on, because I like to think about this stuff in layers and look at the game’s visual heatmaps that show where your power network is lacking, or where the pools are likely full of piss. But you can turn these layers of the game off completely, at which point your sandbox park will just work . An inviting prospect to those who just want to make stuff look cool.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Frontier Developments

I messed about in sandbox mode far longer than I suffered the campaign. Here, I enjoyed making winding paths for guests and dealing with crowded bottlenecks by enticing them down another route lined with stalls full of hot dogs and inflatable toys. I was especially happy when I planted down a huge set of jungle trees by accident, then embraced it to create a “swamp” of snaking pools that guests could wade through to discover my newly launched flume ride. In these moments, the creative potential of the sim really shines, and I could see exactly why people put so much time and effort into their Workshop creations.

But, as time went on, the weight of the poor user interface eventually crumpled my enthusiasm for that too. I’ve been playing management games for a long time, and it feels odd that Planet Coaster 2 should make me feel so stupid. The method of building something as simple as a set of restrooms is elaborate and sticky, and requires so much returning to a side menu to resize grids or twiddle the angles that my brain just starts to reject it. Like I say, more patient Planetfans might feel the pain of this troublesome interface less keenly. If that’s you and you’re willing to risk a face full of chlorinated slider bars, then dive right in. But for new players like me, it’s a painful belly flop.

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Planet Coaster 2

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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