We went hands on with an alpha build of this upcoming management sim.
Announced just a few short days ago, Two Point Museum is the latest entry in the ongoing Two Point simulation series — following on the from the popular Hospital-themed original, and the subsequent Campus follow up.
I recently got to sit down for a hands-on early look at the PC version.
As you may well have guessed, this new management sim tasks you with building and curating the ultimate museum space — managing not only what the various exhibition spaces look like, but also going out on globe-trotting expeditions, in the wild, to find new, exciting things to feature in your evolving space.
It's this novel expedition mechanic which really sets this upcoming simulation experience apart from what's come before. It introduces a whole new system for adding things to your museum space — you'll hire some qualified researchers and archaeologists, they'll jump in a helicopter, visit a spot on the expanding world map, and come back with new treasures to display — it's a creative addition to the core gameplay, and one that makes for a much more interesting way to go about adding items to your space, especially when compared to the typical method of just selecting things from a menu.
Once you have these new additions for your museum — be that a caveman or sweet set of dinosaur bones for example — you'll then have to jazz up the exhibition with various decorations, signage, lighting, and more. Each thing you chose to show in your museum will have a 'buzz' score — and ensuring your curated display are interesting enough is key to progression. Folks are paying to enter, so it's your job to keep them curious, entertained, and satisfied about their visit.
The building system has been altered from earlier games too, and is now much more free-form in terms of where you can place things such as walls, partitions, flooring, and various decorative items. Creating unique gift shops, staff rooms, restrooms, and full-on exhibition spaces now has a new level of freedom, which although a small change, is a worthwhile one that's going to make for better buildings and more varied museum spaces.
If you've played any of the Two Point games before you'll know what to expect here. This new museum-themed entry seems to have the same rock solid gameplay that came before, but with a pinch of thoughtful new additions to refine things further. Of course you'll also find the series tongue-in-cheek humour and fun gags throughout. The addition of the aforementioned new expeditions system elevates things a notable step up.
Despite being an early alpha build of the game, I came away highly impressed — it’s already a polished sim experience, with plenty of silly charm that looks to ultimately continue the pedigree set by the two prior games in the series.
I adored titles like Theme Hospital when I was younger, so to see Two Point Studios have such continued success with these modern interpretations of the classic sim genre is lovely.
Two Point Museum is set to launch on PC, PS5 and Xbox X/S. A release date is not yet known.