After the monumental success of Two Point Hospital which started its journey on Windows PC in 2018 and later on several console platforms, the developers are back with a bang with Two Point Campus. I’ve always been a sucker for business management sim-style games from a very early age. Skiving off school to play Theme Park, Theme Hospital and Rollercoaster Tycoon rather than actually studying, it’s ironic that this new experience is all about crafting education bases for future generations.

Whilst the previous game had you preventing people from dying and analysing their health, here we will be hopefully giving people a future and blossoming careers and having some hilarious fun along the way. Two Point Campus is available to all on 9th August 2022 when it launches on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Playstation 4|5, Nintendo Switch and Windows PC. The fantastic news for players on the Xbox family of consoles is that it will be available to all who have an Xbox Game Pass subscription on the day it releases. With this in mind though, it is well worth the £34.99/$39.99 asking price and I would have no regrets investing to own this masterpiece forever.

Introduction

If you’re an older gamer like me then you’ll absolutely remember Theme Hospital and the nostalgia surrounding that era and Bullfrog Studios who were responsible for the creation of such a memorable game. After the cravings around the world for a remake, Two Point Studios was formed with veteran developers of the games we all know and love with some fresh, fun and young talented individuals joining the team. The spiritual successor to Theme Hospital was well received by critics across the globe averaging 83-85/100 on Metacritic.

It made sense for this incredible team to stick together and work on something totally new. In 2021 we saw the very first reveal for Two Point Campus, an adventure that retains the same wonderful formula that made Two Point Hospital a hit. This time around though it gives gamers the responsibility to create the educational campus they desire and give their students several paths to their own life journey in later life. We are lucky enough as console gamers to not have to endure any waiting time as we enjoy a simultaneous release alongside the PC platform. What we have before us is a product that has evolved in depth, fluidity and polish and if you loved Two Point Hospital, this is more of the same and then some!

Gameplay

If you’re a newcomer to this style of gameplay then you’ll have no issues with adapting to this game. The first campus serves as more of a tutorial and you’ll start with a blank canvas with some intuitive instructions. Here you’ll receive an introduction on how to rotate and move the camera, construct buildings, place objects, create courses and hire staff. Whilst on the surface things look a little basic at the beginning, it won’t be too long until you uncover the huge amount of content on offer this time around. Whilst the functions of room and product placement are vastly similar to the previous mechanics, you do have the option to bring some activities outside the building so you’re not restricted to just building in certain areas.

Expanding each campus is a simple task if you have enough funds in the bank to do so and will give you additional room to spread the swarms of students and staff through a thriving academic community. You’ll be able to pick each year which courses you want the campus to utilise, fund film clubs and even have cook-offs and student union parties. I love the fact that you could bring additional features like this to your students to lift the mood and change the atmosphere and boost morale across the corridors. Flicking through the menus is an absolute breeze and I found myself getting used to them within a matter of minutes even if I did spend ten minutes at a time tracking whether someone was going to chase their love interest and hop into a double bed together in the dormitory. There is a slight aura of The Sims about it if you really want to look that deep into things outside of the lecture areas.

Be Who You Want To Be!

You really are in control of your students and how they behave and adapt to their learning. If you do not fund and provide the tools for the students to do their work with decent accommodation and amenities, then morale dips and grades fail. Inspections will come back in a negative light and finances will be impacted. Throughout the course of the game, there will be certain challenges and hoops to jump through to get your campus to five-star quality. Using Kudosh can be the key that will allow you to unlock the extra goodies you require to improve the comfort of staff and students. What I adore about Two Point Campus though is the ability to customise everything how you want it to look and there seems to be more aesthetics than ever here. Want to build a huge student union where people can grab a beer, play some darts and table football, then go for it! Fancy a food court outside where people can gather to have lunch, then go mad, just make sure the janitor is around to pick up the trash.

Students can also be shaped into different people than they were before they started at your campus. They can form friendships, and relationships, require extra tuition, require certain comforts and more. As you progress staff can be provided with extra training, and wage increases and you can keep your beady eye on their performance levels to ensure they are pulling their weight. Keeping everyone happy is the key to success, great academic grades and a clean and safe study zone for all.

Graphics & Audio

Two Point Campus is beautifully presented in all areas and ticks all the boxes. From my experience with Two Point Hospital, you can easily tell they have run wild with the imagination here and built on the already brilliant visuals from the past. There is much more vibrancy here with much more attention to detail in many areas. Zooming into certain objects like character faces, arcade machine screens and even the pixelated blur as someone has a shower just shows how much thought has gone into every little piece of this well-illustrated jigsaw.

What I wasn’t expecting was how much creativity has gone into the 12 levels on offer, jousting, wizardry and becoming a spy all forms part of this well-oiled prospectus and the different environments mimic those career paths. Castles, Oxford/Cambridge style settings and urban areas make up the levels. If you fancy spending hours getting your hands dirty and fine-tuning the outside gardens into something that is reminiscent of a flower show, then you absolutely can.

The audio is equally as great as the visuals with witty puns, humourous jokes and sarcastic passing comments all made over the campus PA system. The rest of the game’s sound effects blend in perfectly with no grumbles whatsoever. Some may find the comedic value a little cheesy but personally, I am all for it, the game never takes itself too seriously in that respect. The gameplay loop is as smooth as butter with a solidly locked framerate on Xbox Series X and not a single bug in sight. It’s a distinction all around for the art and audio teams.

In Conclusion

Two Point Campus is absolutely outstanding and hooked me from the moment I began to play. It retains the addictive nature of Two Point Hospital and mirrors all of the same mechanics but it has built on the rock-solid foundations of the past. The ability to now build on the grounds outside of buildings and have an atmosphere outdoors as well as confined to the spaces you create gives the user many more options. It still has that balance of serious deep business management aspects with various screens rich with clear and concise data but with the silly and wacky elements, we are used to from the previous title. It is obvious to see that the development team have listened to community feedback and implemented the most requested features and blended them in superbly within the campus experience.

Nurture Those Little Fountains Of Knowledge!

I felt that I had more opportunities, more options and much more flexibility to be more creative this time around. I could delve into the feelings, personal relationships and emotions of these little people before me and absorb everything about them. You can keep an eye on their relationships, friendships, their mood, and whether they were having fun. It became more than just running a campus at this point for me and almost made me feel like a virtual headteacher which I loved. It was almost like I built connections with them and actually used this to give them what they wanted, rather than just whacking classrooms, bathrooms and libraries up aimlessly.

Two Point Campus becomes my game of the year of 2022 so far and whilst there are still four months left to go, I can see it remaining there. The entire package oozes quality and I was looking so hard to find something to criticise and there was nothing that stood out whatsoever. The structure and progression of working through the 12 locations on offer will keep you going for a lengthy period of time with more DLC promised to be on the way.

I adored the fact that you never ever felt like you were fully finished with one campus before you moved on to the next. This always gave you a reason to backtrack and offers longevity and it is only the curiosity about what is coming in the next level that drives you to move on. If you’re on Xbox with a game pass subscription then there is no excuse not to give this one your time and it gets outstanding A-Star grades across the board from me.