Planet Of Lana 2 Gamescom Preview

In 2023, Wishfully released Planet of Lana, a puzzle platformer acclaimed for its visual storytelling and masterful use of music. A few years later, the Swedish studio is now gearing up to release a sequel that continues the story of Lana and her cat, Mui, with those same narrative concepts at its heart.

At last month's Gamescom, I was able to get a brief hands-on with Planet of Lana 2 under the guidance of co-director Klas Martin Eriksson.

Planet of Lana 2 has something I always appreciate in a project — a single unifying concept that underpins everything else surrounding it. In this case, the core is the relationship between Lana and Mui, and the entire game is constructed around the interplay between these two.

Dynamic Duo

Planet of Lana 2 Little Girl Holding Mui

That's a unique aspect of Planet of Lana: you can hold a button to free your cursor and direct Mui where to go on the screen. Several of the puzzles I played through in Planet of Lana 2 involved positioning Lana and Mui in the correct positions to progress through the section.

Mui isn't some object that can be placed and forgotten about, either. Lana's feline companion won't just teleport behind the player if they move too far away, though in some instances the feline will follow Lana. However, you'll need to get both Lana and Mui through every section of a level, illustrating the equality of the pair in terms of their relationship with one another and their relationship with the game's mechanics.

There are several times when I became so focused on progressing with Lana that I completely forgot about Mui. While they typically follow, you can also make her stay put, for puzzle-solving purposes. Mui will remain in that one spot until you return for them, no matter how far you go. Naturally, you'll quickly be gated from progressing too far, as most puzzles require both parts of the pair to complete.

Platforming & Transforming

Planet of Lana 2 isn't just a puzzle game, though. Lana has multiple movement mechanics that I had to utilise to get over obstacles - there are wall-jumps and run-slides, for instance. I didn't encounter anything difficult in terms of parkour, but the game certainly has the necessary mechanics to create trickier platforming sections if it wishes to. I suspect there are points later in the game that require some finesse.

Mui also has a power that allows them to morph into creatures that the pair encounters. At one point, I had to learn how much momentum a fish generates while swimming upwards, so I would know how much of a run-up (swim-up?) I needed to be able to leap from one body of water to another.

This was part of a clever puzzle that required me to pilot an ink-spraying fish to block the sight of a giant, little girl-eating fish guarding the area exit. Planet of Lana 2 features no dialogue or text, so there were no annoying hints from non-player characters or Lana telling me what to do. Everything you need to know can be read from the environment, and I appreciate a game that doesn't squeeze your hand while you play.

The sound design continues to be stellar, with composer Takeshi Furukawa returning from the first game to score Planet of Lana 2. There's something quite obviously "beautiful" about Planet of Lana 2, and I expressed as much to Eriksson as I was leaving the room. He agreed, saying that sort of ethereal, ponderous beauty is exactly what they're going for.

Narratively, Planet of Lana 2 is a direct sequel to the events of the first game. Many of the once-threatening machines from the first game have been domesticated and repurposed by an even more nefarious force, which provides all of the opportunities for social commentary that you'd expect.

At one point in my preview, I got to play a section where Lana and Mui had been imprisoned. The rest of the level is about reuniting the pair. This leads to situations where you're controlling Lana in a room and Mui in the air vents above the room - always close, but never quite together. The whole thing is a very poignant example of gameplay complementing narrative, and I get the feeling the same level of care has been applied to the entire game.