What is Planet of Lana 2?

Planet of Lana 2 is a side-scrolling puzzle game from Wishfully and published by Thunderful. It is a direct continuation of the original game from 2023. Planet of Lana was an emotionally charged game with an amazingly atmospheric and serene art direction that elevated it above most in the genre. But what made it stand out the most in its genre is its approach to puzzles that felt more like Limbo and Inside. Where trial and error take priority in most puzzles.

But what gripped me personally was the way the game was laid out. Playing Lana, watching everything he knows get ripped away from him, and having nightmares of the events or dreams of being reunited with his family hit very close to him. It was an emotional hook that Wishfully took full advantage of, and it paid dividends. This same feeling is not felt in the sequel, however. Planet of Lana 2 feels more like a benchwarmer for a third installment in my eyes. Something that only became apparent when I hit the game’s abrupt ending, which soured most of my positive feelings on the experience.

Developer & Publisher // Wishfully, Thunderful Publishing
Platforms // Nintendo Switch 1|2, PlayStation 4|5, Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
MSRP & Release Date // $19.99, March 5th, 2026
Reviewed On // PC/Steam Deck

PC Specs:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G
GPU: AMD Radeon RX6600
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3000Mhz

A Return for Mysteries

The opening has Lana exploring the ship that was found at the end of the original game. But it is not just Mui that Lana is exploring with, it is also with a new character named Anua. After playing hide and seek in the ship and uncovering a few new secrets in it, and everyone making their way back to the village, the village is attacked once again, but not by robots; instead, a group of humans drops off a mysterious boulder that poisons Anua. After Elo, Lana’s sister, and other villagers go on a counterattack, Lana is tasked with making a remedy to save Anua, while also stumbling upon more than what he bargains for.

The initial hit of the game’s opening was impactful. But shortly after Lana sets out, Planet of Lana 2 focuses more on lore and worldbuilding that were mostly left to environmental details in the original game. The game does use Lana and Mui, the adorable little animal companion, to great effect in the game. Where the co-dependency between each other does tug on the heartstrings. But partway through the story, the narrative’s flow is broken up by memory segments through Mui’s perspective. These chapters are great on their own, but only really work with the knowledge of the previous game.

These segments are great and offer a lot of vital information about the game’s world, but they could feel a little confusing to people who have yet to play the original. On a more sour note, they are presented as chapters with minimal gameplay; they could have just been cutscenes between those gameplay-filled chapters.

My biggest gripe with the story of the game is how abrupt it ends. Without spoiling anything, when I thought the game would lean more on the humans that attacked Lana’s village, it instead hurries along to many shocking twists that I admittedly never saw coming.

I felt the game could have spent longer in the end areas, but dashed my hopes to learn more about the people who caused the game’s story to begin with, and the giant city they live in. Despite my gripes with the story, Planet of Lana 2 did not let up on the puzzle design, nor the striking beauty of the world.

More Brutal Puzzles in Planet of Lana 2

Planet of Lana 2 doubles down on the approach to its gameplay from the original. That being the puzzles, and how truly dynamic they have become in the sequel. A lot of the puzzles made me feel like I was getting smarter as a human being, weirdly enough. Lana climbs, pushes boxes around, and crawls through tight spaces. There are even puzzles with time-based climbing segments that felt brutal at times. Meanwhile, Mui has a new mechanic on top of its original abilities to let down rope or activate switches, which is to create a surge of electricity that can knock out robots, activate other switches, and even take over creatures in the environment.

This mechanic was a lot more exciting than I originally anticipated. In an earlier part of the game, Lana has to dive down into a lake beneath his village. The lake has a few electric sharks that block Lana’s path. With the ability from Mui, you can take over these little fish to create inky smoke screens for Lana to traverse the water below safely. If that does not sound interesting enough, however, one part of the snow level was the biggest challenge to me.

In the snow level, you can take control of these little icy roller creatures. These roller creatures create icy trails that get ignited when they run into a small lava eruption. One of the puzzles required creating 2 separate trails with precise timing, where Lana had to move a box on top of a part of the environment that elevates just in time to avoid a cliff being closed off. It is hard to describe, but solving that puzzle made the rest of the game a breeze.

That is not to say the rest of the puzzles in Planet of Lana 2 are easy. It is just that some more than others promote mastery over the challenges the game throws at you. The puzzles are constant and always changing. I never felt bored and got frustrated often, but I truly enjoyed the design of each puzzle.

Gorgeous New Biomes

While the majority of the original game took place in similar biomes. Planet of Lana 2 takes Lana and Mui to jaw-dropping locales. The aforementioned snow level is just one of many new, incredible biomes to enjoy. One is a tropical locale with deep underwater exploration that mixes in ship ruins with a haunting atmosphere. My favorite in the game is a lush green jungle with robot carcasses and some interesting puzzle mechanics stitched in.

Using Mui, you can control these little flies that soak up water. That water can then be used to water plants that grow tall bamboo-like plants to swing to new locations, or activate water wheels. Each location is very well realized and visually stunning. The way characters are dressed and how realistic the robots are designed reminds me of the original Star Wars movies in terms of aesthetics. That being said, the screenshots I have used in this review do not do the game’s visuals justice.

One part of the game that could be better is the audio design. The environments you explore can either feel impressively atmospheric or very dull. For example, the music mixes into the levels really well to do a lot of heavy lifting for otherwise underwhelming sound effects. The audio underwater is really good, and so is the wind at the snow level. But the little electric zaps from robots, amongst other things, don’t sound impactful. It doesn’t ruin the immersion, but it could be a whole lot better.

Accessibility, Performance, and Bugs

As far as accessibility is concerned, it is very limited, and does not feature at least colorblind options.

As far as performance goes, I spent the majority of my time playing Planet of Lana 2 on Valve’s Steam Deck handheld. The game always ran at a flawless sixty frames-per-second, and on my PC, consisting of a Ryzen 5 5600G, RX 6600, and 16 gigabytes of DDR4 ram, it ran similarly flawless. It is a technically perfect experience, albeit one with a few bugs.

During one important encounter near the end of the game, when Lana goes to hack a small drone and is hit by a projectile, he does not die but can no longer move. This prompted me to use the reload checkpoint feature, but the game got stuck when I clicked that option. I had to manually close out of the game and resume from there. The other problem I had is more visually related.

When falling off a ship in a chase sequence and into the ocean. I noticed that the ocean below looked very underwhelming compared to the very well-realized lakes and other locales that the game had fleshed out properly. It’s a minor complaint, but seeing that broke my immersion personally.

Final Thoughts on Planet of Lana 2

Planet of Lana 2 excels at being a more visually and mechanically robust puzzle game with more story and lore to offer than its predecessor. I was in awe for most of my playthrough, hearing the sometimes ominous, sometimes epic, and sometimes serene completing the visual feast on my screen. Its trial-and-error approach to gameplay kept me constantly engaged and wanting more despite some of the frustrating time-sensitive stuff. If the game managed to capture the similar emotional angle that made the original so memorable to me, it would have been a slam dunk. However, Planet of Lana 2 is more than worth playing through to see what Wishfully has in store, and beyond.

Final Score: 8.5/10

Pros:

• Stunning Vibrant Graphics.
• Incredible Puzzle Dynamics.
• Focus on Lore and Worldbuilding.
• Beautiful Music.

Cons:

• Lacking a Similar Emotional Hook.
• A Game-Breaking bug at the end.

Disclaimer – The publisher provided a key for review purposes.