Park Beyond pushes the boundaries of what can usually be done in a park simulator by giving players far more creative freedom when constructing their parks.
Park Beyond was developed by German developers Limbic Entertainment. Might & Magic players already know the developers for the development of Might & Magic Heroes VII and Might & Magic X. The publishers, on the other hand, could be called titans in the gaming industry. Bandai Namco is known for long-running series like Tekken and games like Elden Ring and Little Nightmares.
Park Beyond is a park builder and management game. Although when you think of park builders, one of the longest-running series is Rollercoaster Tycoon. The first Rollercoaster Tycoon came out 25 years ago and was developed by Chris Sawyer. Unfortunately, while Rollercoaster Tycoon started the genre, not many games redefined it. Most felt like a Rollercoaster Tycoon remake.
That was until Park Beyond entered the picture. Park Beyond allows you to fully control the rail placement, allowing for a more thrilling and creative ride. In the Beta test, two campaign chapters are available for you to play. The game starts with a cutscene depicting a dream park filled with rides you can only imagine. You wake up in your apartment and design a roller coaster that acts as a fire escape spanning the whole city. Let your imagination go wild as you build it, but don’t forget that if the carts move too fast, they can fly off the tracks.
This introduces the first major mechanic in Park Beyond. While you can do almost anything to the rollercoasters, you still have to remember that physics is a thing. Not enough speed and your carts won’t jump the ramp; too much speed and they’ll come off the rails. This makes it more realistic when building roller coasters. But it also helps to make them more fun. If you want to build a coaster built for speed without adding a cannon, give it some major height and let it drop to build up that momentum.
The second mission available in the Park Beyond Campaign is about management. Where most games can get a little over-complicated with management controls, Park Beyond does not. There are different difficulty levels available in campaign and sandbox modes. The easiest is Dreamer. This allows you to focus more on building the park rather than micro-managing everything that is happening. Visioneer is the next difficulty and has a decent balance between management and creative gameplay. However, you still won’t need to heavily micro-manage everything.
Manager is the third difficulty. This difficulty puts the emphasis more on gameplay management rather than creativity. You will have to micromanage here, but it isn’t too bad. At Top Executive difficulty, you will need to embrace your inner micro-manager as it gets harder to manage the park. And for those looking for the ultimate management challenge, they can change the difficulty to Tycoon.
While choosing a difficulty influences how difficult the management aspect is of the game, there will always be some sort of management to deal with. Whether it’s making sure you have enough staff or changing up prices. Although some of the more difficult aspects come in when watching which of your rides are falling apart and need maintenance or if they just don’t see any use from your target audience.
You have to make sure your park runs successfully; otherwise, it’s game over. Throughout the campaign’s missions, you are joined by a colourful cast of characters who will offer advice or quirky comments about what’s going on in your park at the moment. Sandbox mode offers much more freedom, although management will still be a part of gameplay.
One of the sandbox modes is the exploration park. This mode allows you to explore the many intricacies of park building, from building new coasters to making the impossible possible with the rides and shops littered around the park. This mode in Park Beyond will give you a list of challenges to try out.
After the Exploration Park, there is only one other map in Sandbox mode. It is known as the East Asia Grand Lake. This map features lakes and water features along with bamboo forests. This allows you to create your park from scratch and gives you full access to landscaping tools. Whether you create a more steep area or make the lake much larger to create a pier-like park is up to you.
One of the nicer aspects when building your rollercoaster is being able to ride them and see just what terrifying stunts you’ve put your customers through. It also allows you to get a better idea of the amount of g-force the carts are experiencing when coming around corners allowing you to either change the rail type to something that will slow the cart down or bank the rails.
With any park builder, you would expect a large variety of park styles and may have to only pick one of them sometimes. Park Beyond does that differently with the ability to create a theme park with multiple themes. Although in the Beta Test, you only have the Western theme and the Park Beyond theme for building, it’s still a nice aspect to have.
Even though there are prebuilt structures, you can completely design your own structures. You have access to a large variety of items to help with this build, from creating a fantasy setting by building castles and towers to just creating an almost metropolis-like city in the middle of your theme park. If you can imagine it, you can possibly make it happen.
The sound has been done well in Park Beyond. The voice acting is done well for the characters who make comments throughout the sandbox and talk to you through the campaign mode. Whether they scold you for breaking the budget or comment on how many visitors have come by the park, they can convey the emotion needed, and their lines have been well thought out. Although the music can be a little repetitive and it would be nice to have a slightly larger selection to choose from when editing rides. The sound effects done for everything, from the people talking to even the sound of the coaster as it moves along the tracks, bring the game together.
The animations for all the rides and the roller coasters are smooth, especially with the switch from the base structure going into the upgraded version. Even the animations for the customers as they walk around the park and interact with various rides and different staff, from food stand cooks to the entertainers on the sidewalk, have been well done.
Park Beyond has a fun and quirky style, with each park theme bringing in different splashes of colour and personality as needed. Whether you are creating a western theme park filled with cowboys and old-fashioned saloons or just opting for the normal quirky style of the game, there is a lot that will help with building your dream theme park.
Overall, Park Beyond is a fun and quirky park management simulator with a colourful cast of characters. It puts emphasis on both a player’s creativity and their management skills when running a park.
