As you may have seen in our July 2024 Xbox indie games roundup earlier this week, Parkitect: Deluxe Edition recently launched on Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, and it's worth considering if you're a Rollercoaster Tycoon fan.
Specifically, we're talking classic Rollercoaster Tycoon. Parkitect has a similar look and feel to RCT2, and as you'd expect, your goal is to complete the campaign or make a dream park in the Sandbox mode. There's scope to create incredible parks and rides, you'll find plenty of management aspects, and the gameplay is simply very enjoyable overall.
"Welcome to Parkitect: Deluxe Edition, a modern take on the classic park tycoons where you build and manage the theme parks of your dreams. Construct your own coasters, design an efficiently operating park that fully immerses your guests in its theming and play through the campaign."
"Parkitect: Deluxe Edition maps are huge, yet every tile matters. Adventure park or fantasy land? Why not both? The only limit is your imagination. From the smallest details such as placing each flower pot, to designing massive roller coasters, you decide the depth of your journey."
So yeah, Parkitect is a really good game that absolutely deserves your attention - but the catch is that the Xbox version could be better. Firstly, the control scheme is pretty awkward and requires too many finicky button presses to achieve what you want, which grows irritating in a game with such depth as this. There's also no mouse and keyboard support on Xbox at launch, which seems a very strange oversight for a former PC exclusive.
You'll find some drawbacks in terms of the feature set compared to the PC version as well, such as no online multiplayer and no ability to download custom blueprints. Ultimately, PC is still the way to go if you've got the option.
But if you haven't? Well, if you can get used to the controls, Parkitect has the potential to offer countless hours of enjoyment on Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. We'd say it's possibly a better game than the likes of Park Beyond and maybe even Planet Coaster, but those two titles have it beaten in the control department for now.