amusement – SamaGamer

Park Beyond is Limbic Entertainment’s first theme park simulation. We reveal whether the new genre king awaits us here.

Hamburg – With “Park Beyond”, developer Limbic Entertainment is launching its first major amusement park development game to teach the competition to fear and follow in the footsteps of genre classics such as “Rollercoaster Tycoon”. In our test, we’ll tell you where the title can shine, whether it’s enough to throw the competition off the throne and where the development studio still needs to improve a little.

name of the game	ParkBeyond
release	June 16, 2023
Publishers	Bandai Namco Entertainment
developer	Limbic Entertainment
platform	PS5, Xbox Series X\|S, PC
genre	simulation

To be honest, we were really looking forward to Park Beyond. After a first play date at Gamescom 2022 and our preview in May, we were quite optimistic and excited to see what developer Limbic Entertainment would present to us in the full version. In our test, we were finally able to take a look at the entire Park Beyond campaign and get a comprehensive picture of the game.

The Park Beyond campaign: “Could you like a little more?”

For the Park Beyond campaign, we, as a young roller coaster visionary, are supposed to get the Cloudstormer company out of its precarious economic situation. In doing so, we have to prove our skills as managers and repeatedly pick up the spade ourselves to stomp attractions, shops and infrastructure for our park out of the ground. Unfortunately, we have to disappoint those who were looking forward to a sprawling campaign that contains numerous missions.

Of the total of 8 missions, two missions basically only consist of the tutorial, so only a total of six playable missions remain in the campaign. Even if the tasks can be quite demanding later on, a little more scope would have been desirable. That’s a shame, because the various missions are a lot of fun.

As part of the “Park Beyond” campaign, we repeatedly have to make important decisions in our own pitches. © Bandai Namco Entertainment / Limbic Entertainment

For example, we have to make a run-down park profitable again or, under time pressure, outperform our rival Hemlock by building the largest possible amusement park as quickly as possible. The fully voiced and animated cutscenes are nice, but offer no added value in terms of gameplay or narrative, we would have preferred a few more scenarios and more scope at this point. Here Park Beyond gives away a lot of potential.

Park Beyond in sandbox mode: A sandbox to let off steam

However, the heart of Park Beyond is clearly the sanbox mode anyway. In contrast to the campaign, there are also 27 different maps waiting for us to let off steam. This is where the simple game principle unfolds its attraction after a very short time. It’s just fun to set up your own buildings and shops, build your own roller coasters and watch the park grow. Another big plus point: The economic simulation in Park Beyond is much more sophisticated than in the competitor “Planet Coaster”, if we make the entrance fee too expensive, for example, the guests will turn back straight away.

Roller coasters belong in every good amusement park © Bandai Namco Entertainment / Limbic Entertainment

The fact that Park Beyond is not a tough simulation, but encourages us to make our wildest roller coaster dreams come true, should make the heart of every hobby architect beat faster. This applies in particular to the so-called “impossifications”. With this mechanic, we unlock another level in our rides, in which the attractions get even crazier and often defy the laws of physics.

A giant cannon in the middle of the roller coaster rails? No problem! © Bandai Namco Entertainment / Limbic Entertainment

For example, Park Beyond allows us to place a giant cannon in the middle of our coaster track, which will shoot our riders hundreds of meters through the air until they land back on the safe rails. These “impossifications” can be applied not only to rides, but also to park employees, which leads to absurdly funny moments.

Park Beyond with a powerful editor: “Do what you want.”

Park Beyond offers a very powerful editor mode, with the help of which many assets can be broken down into their individual parts and redesigned. We can personalize almost all rides in different ways. For example, anyone who has come up with their own color design for their park can let off steam and even color the individual components that make up an attraction individually.

We are allowed to determine the colors of the individual attractions ourselves in detail. © Bandai Namco Entertainment / Limbic Entertainment

Playing a construction simulation with the gamepad – can that work?

For our test, we took a close look at the PC version of the game. The game is easy to use with a mouse and keyboard. However, since the title is also coming to the PS5 and Xbox Series, we also took a look at the controller controls. Unlike its big competitor Planet Coaster, Park Beyond for PC also comes with official gamepad support. The advantage of this is that the title can also be played on the PC in a relaxed manner on the couch instead of having to sit at the desk. A thumbs up for that.

But especially with building games that are based on the PC and for which we have to navigate with the mouse through many small menus, the central question arises here: How well can Park Beyond be operated with a controller? The answer to that is not that easy. While building roller coasters, for example, works surprisingly well, navigating through the menus is unfortunately not particularly successful.

Too bad: The small menus cannot be operated so well with the controller © Bandai Namco Entertainment / Limbic Entertainment

This is partly due to the fact that the menus can be enlarged, but often remain too small and are difficult to read on larger displays from a distance. Unfortunately, although the user interface can be enlarged even in the options, it remains too small even at the maximum zoom level. Developer Limbic Entertainment could improve this with a patch, because the implementation of the controller control has been successful in the beginning, but could be much better.

Park Beyond in conclusion – A high-altitude flight with room for improvement

With its new mechanics and “impossifications”, Park Beyond brings some fresh ideas to the genre that help the title to set a unique selling point. The game is quite layered and complex, but teaches us its mechanics very well. The extensive help function also guides us step by step through all of the game’s functions. To make it short: The complete package is right.

However, we would have hoped the campaign would have been bigger, it would have helped Park Beyond stand out from the competition. Controlling with the gamepad could also be made much more user-friendly with a few tweaks. But even if these factors cloud our overall impression a little, our positive first impression from the preview did not deceive us.

We also did not encounter any bugs during the test, which surprised us very positively. The title also ran absolutely smoothly on our older test system with a GTX1070 graphics card and on a Steam Deck. So you don’t need particularly powerful hardware to have fun with the title.

Our conclusion: Park Beyond is a really well-rounded package that doesn’t have to hide from the competition. We are particularly excited about the roadmap and the upcoming content that the manufacturer has announced on its website. Limbic Entertainment is on the right track and the title is just a lot of fun. We can recommend Park Beyond for all construction fans at this point without hesitation.