Planet Coaster: Ghostbusters (DLC)

Planet Coaster is already the most decision-dense theme park sim on consoles, a game where you are simultaneously tracking ride intensity ratings, staff wages, queue length ratios, and path layout efficiency. The Ghostbusters DLC does not reset that spreadsheet. What it does is layer a structured campaign on top of it, one that gives the management loop a narrative reason to exist. That is worth paying attention to if you have ever bounced off the base game's open-ended sandbox because "build whatever" is too formless a goal to hold your attention. The campaign runs across two scenarios with multiple objectives per stage, guided by Dan Aykroyd reprising his role as Ray Stantz and William Atherton returning as Walter Peck. Peck is not just decoration: he actively interferes with your operations as you progress, applying pressure to your income in ways that map loosely to a political antagonist mechanic you would recognise from the Tropico series. That wrinkle gives the management decisions actual stakes beyond guest happiness percentages. The new haunting mechanic is the most interesting systems addition: rides get haunted, guests panic and refuse to board, and you hire a dedicated Ghostbuster staff member who deploys to containment units placed around the park to discharge captured ghosts. It is a guest-flow disruption system and a staffing allocation puzzle rolled into one, and it carries over into sandbox mode after you finish the campaign. On the content side, the DLC ships two dedicated rides. The Ghostbusters Experience is a fully interactive tracked dark ride where you sit in the ECTO-1, shoot ghosts with Proton Packs in first person, and chase a high score through scenes pulled from the 1984 film. The RollerGhoster is a Slimer-themed kiddie coaster, lower intensity, useful for covering your demographic gaps. The scenery library is the real bulk of the package: New York high-rise building facades, Ghostbusters HQ, Spook Central recreations, a marshmallow shop, ghost projection pieces, and animatronics of all four Ghostbusters in various poses. Critics broadly agree that the asset library, not the campaign length, is where the long-term replay value lives, and that is a fair read. The campaign itself is short by tycoon standards and does not fundamentally alter how Planet Coaster works. If you came in expecting a mechanical overhaul, adjust expectations now. One honest friction point worth flagging: Planet Coaster on console has always had a steep learning curve. The game teaches through video tutorials rather than interactive guidance, and building anything complex with a controller is a slower, more deliberate process than on PC. The Ghostbusters DLC does nothing to flatten that curve. If you are new to the base game, budget time for the learning hurdle before the licensed content starts to pay off. Once you are past it, the Ghostbusters scenario is arguably the most structured entry point the game offers, which makes it a reasonable place for a newcomer to start their campaign run. The haunting mechanic adds a clear reactive goal, the voice cast keeps the exposition engaging, and the asset unlocks give you something to build toward. For returning players who have exhausted the base career mode, this is exactly the kind of lateral content that refreshes the management loop without requiring you to learn a new game.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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