If there’s one thing we need in life that goes criminally underappreciated, it’s education. Ejucashun kan turns a sentinse lik this into something that can be concise and precise, or eloquent and needlessly protracted. From students to heads of state, veterinarians to loquacious video producers — we all could do with a little more of it. SEGA and Two Point Studios know the importance of education, so they invited us down to the Two Point Studios’ HQ to learn a thing or two about their upcoming management sim, Two Point Campus. We got a good working day’s worth of time with it, so how does it hold up? Are we not educated?
First and foremost, this isn’t Two Point Hospital. It bears a lot of the same hallmarks and DNA due to it coming from the same developers and being the same sim genre, but the core loop is definitely not the same. For one thing, the tools at your disposal are even more flexible than ever; gone are the limited buildings and their weird shapes that make room organisation a nightmare, for now you can expand, contract, or reshape any building you desire, or even create new ones, which for Campus’ arguably more complex systems is a huge boon.
Speaking of complex systems, the approach is quite different this time around. Rather than churning out patients and treating them as objects in need of little more than fixing, you’ll have to keep your students not only learned, but also happy. You can do this by giving them nice dorm rooms to enjoy, social spaces to develop relationships (which actually affect various mechanics), and host parties to keep their spirits high. You’ll also run the nice little risk of becoming attached to some of the students, as they’ll be hanging around for three blinkin’ years, provided they don’t fail of course.
One feature that really stood out to us was the ability to 'favourite' students, perhaps because they’re moaning and threatening to leave and you want to keep tabs on them to improve their lot in life. The game will even give you little updates on what they’re up to, such as popping over to the Student Union for a milkshake, or becoming best friends with a student whose surname is also ‘Studmuffin’.
And you’ll need to be on your toes, as each student will be taking different subjects within their course. Not a big deal for most of them, but some subjects require specific objects in specific rooms, so if you’ve crammed all you can in your Potions room and suddenly a student needs a card table or something, you’d better start shuffling or expanding as they may not pass without it.
You’ll also get new students each year, and with every one of them hanging around for three of them you’ll need to expand your campus significantly for the second and third years as you take on more and more students. The game offers plenty of time in order to do this, but you won’t be earning any money keeping time at a standstill, so forward planning is essential.
Performance is largely strong as well for a game of this complexity on a system this small. Drops were common in the build we played but didn’t affect gameplay, however that may well be a sticking point for a few people out there. We personally don’t have a problem with a game like this running into some dropped frames when things get busy, but if that’s something that takes a game down a grade or two in your eyes, keep your performance expectations in mind.
If you’re into management sims, we highly recommend you keep your sights on Two Point Campus. Despite spending hours with the game, we’re not only gagging to get right back into it but also feel like there’s so much more we’ve yet to discover. It’s scratching that Two Point Hospital itch in a wholly different way, and we’re eagerly sharpening our fingernails in anticipation.
We can't wait to learn more.
Two Point Campus is scheduled to launch on Switch on 9th August 2022.
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Comments 11
Very much looking forward to this! Two Point Hospital was great, and the magic school parts of this game look wonderful!
I pop up on basically all of the two point campus stuff and you know I'm going to pick up the game regardless of how successful I'll have to actually make the campus, but if my Greendale campus is actually going to be a success, I'm going to need classes like "Intro to Ladders" and "Nic Cage: Good or Bad."
I’m sort of expecting this to be on Gamepass, and I’m definitely expecting this to be one of the highlights for casual gaming this year. I liked Two Point Hospital a lot more than I expected, even if the game became sort of routine.
This looks like it’s going to be a nightmare to play in handheld mode with all of the tiny text and icons scattered throughout the convoluted interface.
And even worse, if this, like Two Point Hospital, doesn’t contain touch screen support merely by default because the other platforms don’t have them (underutilising Switch features is an all too common practice with multiplatform titles).
Performance also leaves a lot to be desired judging by the above preview footage (and handheld performance is likely to be a lot worse as these sorts of games would be CPU heavy).
I loved Two Point Hospital, so, I’m not overly pessimistic about this, but this looks like it needed substantially more time in the oven to iron out some of its issues.
The good news though is that Two Point Hospital is finally coming to GOG soon, so I fully intend to double dip (and the game would benefit tremendously from a keyboard and mouse given the lack of touch screen support in the Switch version). And on that note, depending on how this looks once it’s released, I may well hold out for a GOG release of this in a few years instead.
It it takes place in America it needs an active shooter situation DLC to make it relatable to our current nutter problem.
I can't wait. If its half as good as two point hospital it'll be great.
Two point hospital was great in that it didn't suffer the usual switch woes of having to sacrifice something to be on a handheld/console hybrid. The devs seem to know how to optimize for the platform well, so I'll keep an eye on this one.
Yea no way I’m getting this on switch than pc but should be good for ppl who want the portability
@SteamEngenius It doesn't take place in America.
Two Point Hospital is absolutely BRILLIANT! It's made by the same people who made the original Theme Hospital and Theme Park games. And it shows, it's really the spiritual sequel to Theme Hospital we've always wanted, it takes everything that made the original good and turns it up to 11, with way more of everything, way more customisation, way more potential for what you can create, way more funny diseases, etc
So yeah, two point campus is gonna be a must buy. I have no doubt it'll be as good if not better than two point hospital, and that's saying a lot.
Cos I think Two Point hospital might be my favourite ever game in this genre, I guess we'll call it the tycoon genre, or theme builder genre, or whatever. Tycoon genre is the one I see more often, but theme Park came out before the first rollercoaster tycoon game, didn't it?
But yeah I'm including sim City games in that as well. And yeah, two point hospital may be my favourite of all of them
It makes sense for the originators of the genre to be the best as making a modern version of it
But yeah for everyone interested in this new university campus themed one, buy two point hospital first if you haven't already. It goes on sale every so often. I think I got it for like £15 at a time when it normally went for £40. And it's worth more than £40 anyway, it's got SO much content in it. It's difficult to get bored of it.
It runs surprisingly well on switch too considering it's all in 3D. It can be a bit stuttery sometimes but you don't even notice it after a short while
This might be the next release I'm actually looking forward to at this point. Let's hope tomorrow's direct changes that...
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