Rollercoaster Tycoon World draws lots of Cities: Skylines comparisons at PAX

rctw

The somewhat mysterious Rollercoaster Tycoon World made an appearance at PAX, showing off in detail both its mod support and sandbox mode. It’s the first proper glimpse we’ve had at the game since it was announced the visual style would be changing in response to fan complaints. Originally slated for early 2015, they’ve now switched to the end of this year, but are still planning to get it out pre-2016.

PCWorld have an in-depth preview and are not the only ones to make immediate comparisons to Cities: Skylines. It comes down to the ease of building something from nothing using tools that allow for incredible customisation but aren’t difficult to learn. Mods are also taking a major role in the appeal of the game. RCTW will have workshop support from the start and downloading custom elements is considered as much a part of the game as building theme parks.

The changes since the last time we saw it are down to a new development team. They’ve overhauled the aesthetic and binned the placement model for rollercoasters, replacing a grid system with something more fluid that can be told to snap if need be. It’s quite the set of changes and hopefully there’s still a good base game there despite the total reimagining.

Smaller site GamersNexus did an interview withMatt Labunka, one of Atari’s producers on the game:

As Matt says, no specific release date and they’re aiming for Q4, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see this slip from the 2015 Death Zone into friendlier early 2016 waters, not least so they can get some more valuable dev time in.