Two Point Museum review: "The best management sim from Two Point Studios to date"

In Two Point Museum, I sit back and watch as visitors start flocking in to admire an aquarium I just built. Seeing the tank I enthusiastically spent time mapping out and decorating come alive with my latest aquatic finds is satisfying on its own, but it's also helping to rake in donations I sorely need. It's my job to not only run the museum like a well oiled machine – by managing my staff, maintaining my displays, and catering to the needs of my guests – but I also have to invest in expeditions to find more artifacts, or in this case fish, to exhibit. It sometimes feels like the ultimate juggling act, but heck if it isn't an incredibly engrossing and downright entertaining one.

Thanks to Two Point Studio's previous management sims, I've dabbled in the world of medicine by running my own hospitals, and tried to mold minds by shaping my own university campus. But nothing compares to my quest to become a bone-a-fide curator in Two Point Museum. With intuitive tools and customization options that let me design the museums of my dreams, it also brings in a wealth of features that make my simulation-loving heart soar. From the different museum themes you get to play with that offer lots of challenge variety, to a host of objectives to complete and locations to unlock, it delivers a rewarding sense of progression that can't be beat. Topped off with the developer's signature lighthearted humor, Two Point Museum is without a doubt the best management sim from Two Point Studios to date.

Artifacts and adventures

For as long as I can remember, I've always loved going to museums. As a history nerd through and through, many of the ones I've visited have felt like real portals into the distant past, while others would ignite my curiosity and wonder by teaching me so much about a topic. Now, thanks to Two Point Museum's in-depth features and thoughtful touches I'm able to capture and mirror that exact experience for my own knowledge-hungry guests in Two Point County.

Two Point Museum is a real dream come true – both as an avid museum goer and management sim fan – and that speaks to how effectively its main campaign succeeds at giving me all the tools I need to shape my own exhibitions exactly to my liking, and all the know-how I need to run and manage everything. With two different core modes to play with, you can let your creativity run free in the Sandbox mode, which allows you to play around with custom settings and create your own challenges to fulfil, while the main campaign tasks you to complete objectives to rise through the curator ranks and build up your very own museum empire.

Sandbox is a great option for those looking for even more creative freedom, but as someone who loves working towards set goals, I spent the majority of my time earning golden stars in the main campaign With various tools to get to grips with and management features to keep an eye on, my journey to curator completionism begins in Memento Mile, a museum that teaches me the (velvet) ropes and acts as a hub to return to and upgrade between managing each new venture. Throughout the early hours, each objective I work through also serves to familiarize me with all of the means I have at my disposal as an up-and-coming curator, the interaction making it feel like a breeze until soon I'm juggling janitors like its second nature.

You can't run a museum with nothing to look at, so from the off, I'm quickly introduced to expeditions, which sees me send out experts in a particular field – in the first instance pre-history – in search of more artifacts to showcase in my museum. Every expedition comes with different set requirements and inherent risks, but I love the sense of adventure and discovery it brings to the experience overall. Not only does it do this by sometimes presenting you with different dilemmas, with choose-your-own adventure style solutions, but it also brings an added sense of progression by presenting various maps and locations to unlock as I progress through the campaign. I'm no longer just chasing shiny star ratings, but real tangible items.

The expeditions also introduces another layer of challenge into the management fold since experts can get injured - or worse. As such, I have to maintain their well-being while also ensuring I still have enough staff back at home to tackle the upkeep of my displays. But there's no reward without some risk, and there's nothing quite as satisfying as seeing an expedition return home with a crate housing their discovery for me to crack open and set out in my museum.

All abuzz

These side adventures are all in the name of expanding my collection and thus gaining more buzz. In the world of Two Point Museum, buzz acts a kind of tangible reading of how appealing and engaging my exhibits are, which is an effective means of keeping track of how I can attract more visitors to my museum. The more exhibits I have, the more buzz I can generate, and everything I can display also has its own buzz bonus requirements – such as being placed nearby a particular decoration.

Happily, making my museum look good is an absolute cinch thanks to Two Point Museum's intuitive building tools. Not unlike The Sims 4, I can easily plop down set rooms and decorate them with ease. Pretty much every object and decorative item can also be customized with a handy color wheel that even has the option to save swatches, so making everything color coordinated to my liking is a breeze. The customization doesn't just stop at objects either, with options to change up my staff's outfits.

What I appreciate the most about the building tools, though, is how easy it is to set down walls, doors, and barrier ropes to funnel guests through the museum in a particular direction. Almost every tool has been designed to let me not only build the museums of my dreams, but also shape the experience within it, too. Crucially, it even feels intuitive on a controller – meaning playing on console feels great, which hasn't always been a given in the genre.

Two Point Museum gives me more space to keep iterating on my exhibitions and museums as I go than I felt I had in its predecessors. In Two Point Hospital you would upgrade your star rating and then move onto the next building, but Two Point Museum's campaign will bring you back to your previous creations and let you keep improving them with more objectives and features. It really instills the idea that you're running not just one museum, but your very own empire that you can chop and change between as you unlock more and keep advancing your curator know-how.

Finding themes

As I progress through the campaign, it never feels too repetitive thanks to the different museums I unlock that each have a particular theme. From a supernatural one based in a haunted hotel with ghostly residents, to a fish-filled aquarium, and museums geared around the likes of science and space, Two Point's take on each is playful and humorous, and the variety they all offer elevates the experience. Each new theme opens up the way to new maps for expeditions, and introduces new sub-types (such as botany or ice exhibits) with unique challenges, designs, and exhibitable items that keep things fresh and renew the sense of discovery.

Management sims can be quite overwhelming at times, but the campaign objectives help to break up all of the features and ease me into learning them step by step, with the first museum laying down a lot of ground work, which I greatly appreciated. Having said that, there were a few occasions where I'd get a little ahead of myself and an objective or solution to a problem would call for me to go to access a particular feature that could be found by going to a certain location, but it wasn't even on the expedition map yet, which would lead to some confusion.

There were also times where some better signposting would have made things easier. Some of the pre-history fossils you can find come in separate parts, and you need to revisit a location to find the missing pieces to complete the exhibit. It would be handy to have some kind of marker on the exhibit itself to remind you where you found it, or alternatively, I would have liked the game to make it clearer that the locations on the map have a reward tab that will tell you this information. But these are only minor quirks in an otherwise smooth experience that excels at teaching you the ropes.

There are many little details and features in Two Point Museum that all work together to bring to life the studio's best game in the genre yet. From a rock-shaped speaker emitting ambient sounds behind my prize dinosaur skeleton display, to being able to set up my very own tours that allow me to guide visitors through my finds, my role as museum curator has surprised and delighted me time and again. If you're a fan of management sims, museums, or both, you won't want to miss this. It's the series' most engrossing and downright entertaining venture yet.

Look ahead to more exciting releases coming our way this year with our roundup of new games for 2025.