Two Point Museum: Two Point Studios’ Design Director Explains How They Worked on the Game Experience

The European side of SEGA has games like Two Point Hospital and Two Point Campus, and now they are looking to create a new museum management game with Two Point Museum.

Resource management games can be as complex as you want them to be. Often we’re used to hearing about them in titles that focus on war strategy, with large nations or factions pitted against each other for conquest, and then there are Two Point Studios’ games that are a little closer to the “tycoon” gaming experience, but with scenarios that may sound flat on paper, but become a lot of fun with the right sense of humor.

Two Point Museum is the latest installment in this franchise, and although we are still some time away from its release, we have a preview of what awaits us in this museum management game.

Different museums, just like in real life

In case you’re a little far away and haven’t had a chance to get to know them, these games put us in charge of a hospital or a university campus, depending on the version you choose. Our role will be to manage resources so that we can provide quality services to all the inhabitants of our world. In the case of the campus, to provide quality education with highly trained teachers, and in the case of the hospital, to cure even the rarest diseases. To achieve this, everything must have a good budget, so that your workers are happy, rested, and not running around idly, as happens in some jobs.

In the case of Two Point Museum, the players’ main task will be to use their creativity to create the best museum in the world, in their world, because everyone thinks differently. Ben Huskins, Design Director of Two Point Studios, tells us more about how they can have a different experience depending on the type of person playing Two Point Museum, as they can send explorers (or archaeologists) on different expeditions to complete a collection inspired by marine life or the caveman era:

“There’s a lot of creative freedom in Two Point Museum. Every choice you make shapes your museums and the challenges you’ll face along the way. This starts with where you choose to explore, which influences what you’ll discover to add to your collection and display in your museum (...) This becomes particularly interesting as you start to layout your museum. Each exhibit has different requirements and gameplay twists, so you’ll need to think about where you want to display each one, how to look after them, and ultimately how it will affect the experience of guests visiting your museum.”

Through various game mechanics, such as partition walls, players can create specific sections for each of their collections, or simply create a guided path for a constant flow of visitors to meet their personal requirements, such as guided tours to the gift shop, to give visitors a complete experience from start to finish. The game’s customization tools allow them to redecorate everything from the floor to other decorative items, with a color picker to match their tastes.

Although the game may sound repetitive in terms of mechanics, players also have a sandbox mode at their disposal where they can manage multiple museums, which can be very rewarding once they have completed their first mission and already have experience in handling all the objects in the game to use it in a freer way. Unlike Two Point Campus and Two Point Hospital, this installment is not strictly governed by a system of stars to “get to the next level”, but it is an experience more focused on the player and his own path, jumping from one museum to another without problems, focusing specifically on exploration or simply redesigning something already built.

In addition to the above, we also have Sonic the Hedgehog content as a pre-sale incentive, which opens up the possibility of new content additions in the future.

Experience firsthand the problems a museum can have

Don’t be fooled by the game’s humorous charge, colorful graphics, and toy art style; disasters can happen here if you’re not prepared. Museums have delicate pieces that should only be appreciated with the sense of sight, touching - most of them - is strictly forbidden.

One of the elements of chaos in the game are the children, agents of evil who can get their grubby hands on your most precious artifacts, but you can avoid this by perfectly delimiting the areas of your exhibits, with more security, or by creating educational materials for the museum. Just like in real life, children are not going to read the kilos of information on a piece of art, but Two Point Museum allows you to create educational rooms to meet their “educational needs” through the workshop.

“Players will need to decide which to build and where best to position them around the museum, as this will fundamentally shape the experience of guests. Families visiting the museum will want something to keep both the kids and the adults engaged – fun for all the family, essentially. And if the museum is deemed suitable, you might even get a school trip, with a horde of children and a somewhat bewildered teacher desperately attempting to herd them – players might see this as a good or a bad thing, depending on how many fragile artefacts they have accessible to youngsters.”

Something that doesn’t happen in real life (or hasn’t happened yet...) is a mammoth or caveman thawing out, so be prepared with everything you need. While children can be a potential problem, so can you, the lack of attention in a room where there is a frozen caveman can turn into a suspension of activities, as a wild man could come out of his exhibit and terrorize everywhere; the problems are not only reduced to a “controlled” space, as could be your own constructions, as your exploration equipment is also prone to different types of misfortunes, ranging from simple injuries to unknown diseases, some of which you may recognize if you played Two Point Hospital.

Little by little, this release is taking shape, and fans of management games will once again be able to greet the strange characters that inhabit Two Point Country: men, women, boys, and girls, as well as the Yeti family and all of their furry children. Nothing is what it seems, and that’s just fine.

Two Point Museum will be officially released on March 4, 2025, and will be available for PC (via Steam), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S consoles.