Two Point Museum is the third installment in Sega’s Two Point franchise, following 2018’s Two Point Hospital and 2022’s Two Point Campus. Though it maintains a lot of the same fundamental mechanics as its predecessors, the new focus on museum exhibits and visitor satisfaction offers brand-new metrics and gameplay that switches things up in very satisfying ways. Screen Rant recently participated in a special hands-on preview with a beta version of the game, which included the first three levels.

Though both Museum and Campus have a focus on education, the former shifts attention from caring for students to teaching visitors through comprehensive exhibits. Both Hospital and Campus focused much more on caring for every aspect of patrons, fixing their ailments or making sure the school had facilities for things like hygiene and socializing. While things like hunger and thirst are still important to manage in Museum, optimizing staff, doing research, and going on exhibit expeditions are now the main mechanics - a change which greatly works to the franchise’s benefit.

Keeping Both Visitors & Staff Happy

Building Buzz, Knowledge, & Entertainment Value

There are four main types of employees players will be managing: experts, who lead expeditions and aid in research, assistants, who work positions like the ticket counter and gift shop, janitors for maintenance and overall cleanliness, and security, who are in charge of tasks like preventing theft and collection donations. The museums themselves can also improve as a whole through research, done by breaking down exhibits, which raises the establishment’s overall enlightenment on different subjects, in turn unlocking new exhibit perks and decor.

Alongside keeping track of if these workers have enough food, drink, comfort, training, and pay, players will also need to contend with visitors. Visitor satisfaction is based on how much Buzz exhibits have, how much Knowledge they gain from them, and - in some cases - their overall Entertainment value. Happy visitors will be more inspired to leave donations, which are actually where most profits come from. Ticket prices can be adjusted for a bit of extra cash, and the gift shop is a bit of a moneymaker, but the bulk of income is much more directly tied to how entertaining different exhibits are.

Buzz in general can be raised by adding decor, and further Buzz Bonuses are earned through things like their proximity to other exhibits or certain decorations used. Knowledge is achieved through info stands as well as tours, which players can customize the route and host of for better results. Players can increase the overall star rating of their museums by completing different milestones, like having a certain percentage of overall employee happiness or generating a set number of Buzz.

Deg new wings, like when I added a botanical section to Memento Mile, was genuinely exciting, and while it doesn’t have quite as many customization options as some simulation games, I could still take a satisfying level of creative license. There are a lot of ways players can tailor the design of their museum, like different flooring and wallpapers, partitions, and staff doors to create barriers for better overall crowd flow. Players also have complete control of the placement of exhibits, as well as the layout of any building additions that come as they expand.

Getting New Museum Exhibits

Expeditions Across Several Maps Add New Goals

There are several different exhibit expertises for the different museums across Two Point County. Memento Mile, the first level, is largely prehistory, which focuses on things like fossils, though it can eventually expand into botany exhibits as well. The second level, water Cove, specializes in marine life, and the third, Wailon Lodge, is all about haunted relics. As is evident from some of these locale names, Museum maintains the same silly tone as the previous Two Point titles, which is one of the features I personally find most charming about the series.

Two Point Museum seems to have really struck a good balance between innovation and sticking with what was already working for the franchise.

Each specialization has exhibits that can be found dotted across different maps - the Bone Belt for prehistory and botany, the Two Point Sea for marine life, and the Netherworld for the paranormal. These maps all have several environments to explore, some of which have different unlock requirements like displaying certain objects. In order to embark, players must assemble an expedition team. Basic trips only need an expert, but rougher missions will require more staff and things like survival training. Employees will fly off in the museum helicopter and return with crates filled with new exhibits of varying quality and rarity.

Different types of exhibits will have different care requirements, as well as things that can raise their Buzz. Types of fish from different regions will have varying tank temperature needs, frozen artifacts must have a freezer, and some plants need heaters and humidity, for example. Popping open crates after each exhibition to see if another piece of a skeleton or incredibly rare object has been discovered was something I genuinely found myself looking forward to, especially because many of these also take a silly slant, like dinosaurs called Sharpontops or plants called Blooming Buffoons.

Final Thoughts On Two Point Museum

Brand-New Mechanics Built On Strong Foundations

Two Point Museum seems to have really struck a good balance between innovation and sticking with what was already working for the franchise. It retains a lot of the core traits that made other Two Point titles so beloved while simultaneously iterating on ideas in interesting ways. Mainstay features like the streamlined room builder seen in the previous games remain and are as useful as they’ve always been, and new additions like overlays for Buzz and Knowledge fit right in with the existing UI.

The shifted focus to more customer service-oriented gameplay, subject expertises, and exploration help inspire a lot of varied, simultaneous goal making. This is true both in of milestones offered by the game itself and personal ones, like wanting to reach new places on the map and finding better exhibits. It’s not yet clear just how many levels the title will have or the long-term results of things like reaching complete research enlightenment, but Two Point Museum undoubtedly has a lot of potential for fans to excavate early next year.

Screen Rant was given Two Point Museum beta branch access for the purpose of this preview.

Source: Two Point Studios/YouTube