Park Beyond Hands-On: A Park Simulator That Lets You Build The Impossible

Playing out the fantasy of owning and operating your own theme park can be a lot of fun, but why limit yourself to merely what’s possible when you can create masterpieces of excitement that could never exist in real life due to technical limitations, the laws of physics, and an inevitable mountain of lawsuits? That’s the central question behind Park Beyond, a theme park simulator that blends true-to-life park management simulation with over-the-top and wonderfully absurd rides and roller coasters that quite literally go off the rails. While I enjoyed the highly detailed and painstakingly realistic park management features, it was in the mishmashing of that realism with purposefully untethered possibilities within my park’s attractions that drew me in and kept me laughing for the duration of my time with it. That’s a deadly combination that hit all the right notes with me and helped me embrace my inner park-trepreneur.

In a lot of ways, Park Beyond is exactly what you’d expect from a theme park simulator. Chiefly, you’ll be concerned with developing a playground for your customers to enjoy themselves while turning a profit to build new, exciting attractions. All of that is very detailed and has an addictive loop(-de-loop) to it. In one instance, I took out a loan to help pay for a very ambitious roller coaster, then got to watch my drained coffers creep dangerously close to bankruptcy as I nervously hoped my enormous gamble would pay off. That stuff is the bread and butter of any simulation game, but as the name implies, Park Beyond is all about mixing it up with things you’d never be able to get away with in real life.

That’s where “impossification” comes into play, a feature that lets you store the joy you create in your customers as a resource that can be spent on making your park attractions perform feats that could never exist in an actual theme park. For example, I turned a milquetoast octopus ride into an insane and hilarious kaiju attack that threw park-goers into the air with reckless abandon. My swinging pirate ship ride, on the other hand, broke apart like the Titanic mid-ride and began swinging the shattered parts in different directions before reassembling itself again at the end. I only got to play the first set of missions and thus have only seen a fraction of what’s possible with impossification, but watching these unhinged creations come to life already has given me a lot more motivation to cultivate my park than most other simulators have been able to do.