Planet of Lana 2 avoids the one mistake most game sequels make

Video game developers often hook players by creating a sense of progress, unlocking more powerful abilities throughout the game. That advancement is often undone in direct sequels so that the gameplay loop can be repeated, but Planet of Lana 2: Children of the Leaf bucks the trend by giving players access to the full suite of abilities they gained in the original — along with some new ones. A hands-on demo of the first two hours of the game revealed a protagonist and world that feels far more sophisticated, while still retaining the beautiful allure of exploring the mysterious planet Novo.

Lana, the young protagonist of Wishfully Studios’ 2023 puzzle platformer Planet of Lana, has grown up a lot after teaming up with the cat-like alien Mui to save her people from machines in the first game. Two years have passed on the planet Novo, which is reflected mechanically in Lana being more athletic and having a stronger bond with Mui.

“She’s gone through hell and back basically in the first game, so she’s matured and learned a lot and is more confident this time around,” Planet of Lana 2 co-director Adam Stjärnljus told Polygon in an interview at Wishfully’s studio in Gothenburg, Sweden. “From a gameplay perspective, it felt so much better and opened up more possibilities to make fun puzzles.”

An extended intro sequence demonstrates just how much Lana has grown by paralleling the opening of Planet of Lana, where Lana chased her big sister Elo through their village. Now Lana is playing big sister to a young girl named Anua, leading her on a merry chase through an overgrown structure that draws on Lana’s new powers: wall jumping, dashing, and sliding. It’s a clever way to add emotional resonance to a tutorial.

But the real magic in Planet of Lana came from Lana’s bond with Mui, with the two working in sync to using their unique abilities to solve puzzles. Most of the challengers the two face in the sequel are fairly intuitive. Lana can’t jump as high as Mui, so Mui might have to hop up a ledge and chew through a rope that will swing down so Lana can pull herself up. Mui hates water — she’ll walk right up to the edge of a pool and dip her paw in before looking at Lana with dissatisfaction in one of the game’s most adorable animations — so Lana needs to bring her a log she can ride in order to cross a pool.

In Children of the Leaf, Mui doesn’t need to share a screen with Lana for her to call on the critter, meaning you need to rethink the scope of what a puzzle can include. That’s especially true when using Mui’s power to hypnotize other Novo creatures, which can lead to effectively having three participants in a puzzle.

Image: Wishfully Studios

I got stuck on a quest to retrieve seaweed that was guarded by an electric shark-like creature because I assumed the solution would be on the same screen. It actually required a complex sequence spread across Lana’s village that involved diving, hypnosis, and springing a trap. It was really satisfying when I got everything to work properly, even if many mind-controlled fish died in the process. A more athletic Lana leads to an increased focus on running and jumping, which can be frustrating when you’ve figured out the puzzle but don’t get the timing quite right. Luckily, the autosaves are generous, so you don’t lose much progress when you need to try again.

The sequel’s larger scale has the effect of making it easier to find hidden bits of lore than it was in Planet of Lana, where there wasn’t as much of an incentive for exploring and backtracking. Wishfully has added a journal to make it easier to keep track of everything, whether you need a reminder of what your current objective is or want to look back at a piece of art you spotted to see if it has a hint for a puzzle.

“The narrative is also kind of its own puzzle, and you make your own interpretation of it as well,” Stjärnljus said. “Part of it is how much time you want to spend on looking at all these little details. That’s why we wanted a place to be able to keep those.”

Image: Wishfully Studios

What I saw of Planet of Lana 2 looks sharp, from its spooky caves to spartan wintery landscapes to Studio Ghibli-inspired critters. Children of the Leaf uses the same graphics engine but has significantly refined its use of shadow and light, which is especially notable in the sections where Lana has to dive deeper. The darker colors add to the tension just as much as the sound effects that indicate that she’s running out of air.

“We do storytelling in the environment where you really need to use lighting to your advantage to set a mood or highlight different things and really build that immersion of actually being there,” Stjärnljus said.

Planet of Lana was Wishfully’s first game, and the studio has grown up with its protagonist. Their sequel is about double the length, meaning I completed about 20% of the game. The demo offered a dramatic variety of environments and puzzles along with the same resonant, minimalist storytelling as the original. Rather than forcing players to restart the journey, the developers are trusting Planet of Lana 2 players to rise to the challenge of using all of Lana and Mui’s skills to see more of her strange world.

Planet of Lana 2 will release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch on March 5.