Two Point Museum Review – You’ll Dig This Relaxing Museum Sim

Two Point Museum Review

Way back in 2018, I had the pleasure of reviewing Two Point Hospital, the first of Two Point Studios’ forays into the sim game genre. I loved its cheeky humor, relaxing gameplay, and well-designed mechanics. Since then, Two Point has solidified its reputation with 2022’s Two Point Campus, delving into the world of post-secondary education. And now, they’re back with Two Point Museum, which lets players grab a trowel and shovel, and curate their very own museum. In my hours of playing it so far, I’ve found that it hits a lot of the notes that made its predecessors great, even if it lacks some of the humorous charm.

There are two modes in Two Point Museum: a Campaign and a Sandbox mode. My personal favorite was Sandbox, but you probably should start with the Campaign. That’s because it acts as a long Tutorial that shows you how to play the game. It’s not essential, though, as Two Point Museum, much like Two Point Hospital, is very intuitive in its gameplay mechanics. You place exhibits in your empty museum to attract paying visitors. Then you hire staff like experts, assistants, security guards, and janitors to take care of the place and its exhibits. You put up decorations, build coffee stands, and even bathrooms to make sure everyone is happy.

It all adds up to the familiar, and solidly fun, gameplay loop that these kinds of games are known for. Two Point Studios has certainly mastered it. You’ll lose 4 or 5 hours just building and hiring away right from the get-go, delighting at your increasingly crowded museum. Little problems spring up here and there, like your frozen fossils melting, and you’ll be busy fixing them and tinkering without realizing how much time you’ve spent. That’s the sign of a good sim game.

Familiar and Fun

If you’ve already played the other Two Point games, you might be thinking that this is more of the same. In some ways, you’d be right. There’s much here that is familiar, maybe overly so. But Two Point Museum does add a new twist, and it is an interesting one. To unlock new exhibits and new themes for your museum, you need to do expeditions. This involves sending staff out to bring back discoveries. Expeditions can present challenges, and you’ve got to make some decisions to salvage them sometimes. Ok, these aren’t exactly deep RPG-like quests but they do add a nice new layer to break the repetition.

The UI, always important in the sim genre, is decent in Two Point Museum. Finding items and rooms to build is easy. Moving around is a bit less intuitive; I always wished I could just grab the screen and just move it left or right with my mouse. Interestingly, controls were much more intuitive when playing Two Point Museum on my Steam Deck, despite the game not being verified yet. Overall, though, this is an easy game to control and the UI feels natural.

The cheeky humor that the Two Point games are known for is back, but in Two Point Museum, it falls a bit flatter. It lacks the sharpness of the first game especially, and I mostly ignored the announcer-lady’s dry quips after a while. Two Point Museum’s tone feels a bit less satirical and whimsical — maybe because the stakes aren’t as grave as they were in a hospital. None of your visitors are going to die if you mismanage a fossil, after all. The dark humor that gave Two Point Hospital a nice spicy edge is not quite as strong in Two Point Museum.

Good Variety

As in their previous entries, the developers have given this latest game a nice, gentle ramp-up of complexity and things to keep up with. This gives you that feeling of satisfaction as your museum grows, and you even possibly expand into another building. An overworld map called Two Point County has many different scenarios that unlock. After you’ve mastered Prehistory in Memento Mile, you can try your hand at others. There’s a marine-themed Passwater Cove, the jungle-inspired Bungle Wasteland, a haunted museum, and even a space museum.

I enjoyed playing Two Point Museum, even after hours and hours. It’s a game that, like the other Two Point games, is just too well designed to not enjoy. My only wish is that there was more of a feeling of growth and gaining power in some way. Your museums get more exhibits, and the crowds do grow, but I still wanted to feel more like I was becoming a “tycoon.” In Sim City, buildings in the popular core get taller on their own, and property values go through the roof. You get a rush of accomplishment, a “wow” at seeing how much your city has gained a life of its own. Two Point Museum needs a bit more of that “wow” factor.

Final Verdict

As it is, this is a great, relaxing, and yes, very fun game. I love the look and the intuitive design. The addition of expeditions is a great idea that works. It’s an easy game to pick up and just start having fun from the first moment to the 50th hour. It might not be perfect but Two Point Museum is another example of why Two Point Studios is the standard for sim games.

** A Steam PC game code was provided by the publisher **