I still remember the lightbulb tease from SEGA many years ago that led to the announcement of Two Point Hospital from Two Point Studios. Two Point Hospital was an excellent management simulation experience with fantastic writing and great music throughout. I never played much of Theme Hospital before, but I know Two Point Hospital features some of the same developers as the former. I came away from Two Point Hospital thinking it was absolutely worth playing and quite a first game from a new studio.
I ended up playing it a lot more on Nintendo Switch compared to PC. I found myself enjoying it on a portable more than my laptop back then. After revisiting it on Switch, I kept thinking of what we could see in a sequel. There were many possibilities for a follow-up, and that brings us to Two Point Campus. Two Point Campus felt like a long-term focused take on the formula, and I ended up clicking with it more through its DLC releases. I liked the music and writing even more than Hospital, and the setting made for some hilarious moments.
When Two Point Museum was announced, I honestly was a bit skeptical because I couldn’t really picture how it would live up to the scope of Campus, but the team ended up delivering in spades. I adored my time with it on Steam Deck earlier this year, but I really was hoping we’d see a Switch or Switch 2 version. It is finally here, and while it is great to see the full game with content updates and DLC available on Switch 2, the port is a bit too conservative for my liking.
If you’ve not played Two Point Museum before, it is a museum building and management game where you work towards building and growing your own museum, sending out expeditions (across various maps and even worlds) to acquire new exhibits for the museum. After a very lengthy but detailed tutorial, you get free rein to play. Earlier this year, when I played and loved the campaign, I thought it was too soon to say if this was my favorite of the three Two Point games, but I can safely say that I like it the most now. It feels like the culmination of what Two Point Studios has learned over the years. It adds more systems, but they all work well together, and all of this is accompanied by the same brilliant writing through PA announcements, the actual in-game flavor text, and the radio.
In addition to the campaign, Two Point Museum on Switch 2 ships with the sandbox mode, where you can select a starting location out of nine available, choose one of three modes (creative, career, and hardcore), adjust the progression objective (and some other settings), and then play to your heart’s content. I actually love that this is available from the start because it allows those who played Two Point Museum on other platforms to still have fun with this port without having to do the campaign.
While Two Point Museum on Switch 2 is definitely already in a better state than Two Point Campus was when I first played it on Switch, I can’t help but feel like the developers were too conservative with this release. I was hoping to see it target a higher frame rate in both modes and make full use of the Switch 2’s many input options. The load times are also a bit too long right now, but I’ll reserve judgment on that for when I’ve played the fully patched version when the game launches. Right now, my impressions are based on the most up-to-date version as of October 27.
Right now, Two Point Museum has no mouse or touchscreen control options. It is purely a controller game. Having already played it on Steam Deck, I didn’t struggle initially, but I really miss the trackpad for precision placement. This could’ve been remedied by some touchscreen support. The team has commented on mouse controls, but there is no definitive word on whether they will be added. It feels like a missed opportunity to release Two Point Museum so many months after other versions and not actually use the console’s input options to their fullest.
Two Point Campus on Switch had a lot of cutbacks and missing features, like being able to zoom like you could on other systems. I still enjoyed my time with it, but it was clearly pushing the console too much in the end. Two Point Museum doesn’t feel compromised in its features and options, but it is a bit disappointing to not have a 60 frames per second target or not even offer visuals that look crisp on my 1440p display when played docked. I think Two Point Museum’s Switch 2 version has seen more work put in for the handheld experience, and while that works out for me, the lack of touchscreen support for menus and no mouse support at all makes me think this port needed a bit more time in the oven.
My hope was that the hitching during autosaves and performance issues would be smoothed out by the day-one patch, but the game is sadly neither a smooth or stable experience on Switch 2 right now. I’ve had a ton of fun with it despite the issues, but you’re better off playing it on a PC handheld if you have the option for the best portable experience.
Now that I’ve been able to play the fully patched version of Two Point Museum on Nintendo Switch 2, it is a perfect fit for Nintendo’s new hybrid console, but the port needs more work, not only in performance and load times, but also in features. Two Point Studios and SEGA would’ve delivered my favorite version of the game had this shipped with mouse and touchscreen control options in addition to controller support.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review copy provided by SEGA
