Two Point Museum review: A delightful journey through a humour-filled history

I’ve never found the previous Two Point games to be cosy. Hospitals and universities don’t really lend themselves to the vibes I expect from a cosy game, despite the genre the Two Point games sit within. When Two Point Museum was announced, I knew it would be the game for me. If I could pick the ideal career away from video games, I’d happily wander the halls of a museum, guiding tourists to the best exhibits and simply existing, surrounded by all that history. It would be akin to working in an old, musty bookshop, where the objects around you offer a source of solace.

Of course, this series has been built on whimsy and humour, which still exists between the archaeology and culture, but the sense of building a place that inspires through a glimpse of history, albeit a tongue-in-cheek version of history, is one of sheer joy.

The first exhibit you get your hands on in the initial museum is an overly large humanoid footprint. You place it down in the building, add some decorative details dotted around, including an information sign, some fancy objects to heighten the buzz of the exhibit, and it will slowly inspire those who come to see it. Children will haphazardly climb all over it, adults lean in with their phones to snap pictures, your staff will come along and polish the display, and those who feel swept away by this piece of history will wander off to find a place to make a donation.

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As we saw with Two Point Hospital and Two Point Campus, the details matter and flesh out the building you’re managing to create an idealised environment. Money is always an object, but you can really make your museum feel like it’s yours, breaking it down into thematic sections, and getting into the nitty-gritty of teaching the public alongside running a successful business.

The first museum in the career path starts off with prehistory. It’s exactly what you’d think; bugs trapped in amber and skeletons of dinosaurs. Slowly, you’ll expand into items from the Ice Age that need to be kept cold, or tropical plants that require heating and a humid environment. The second museum takes you to the coast as your exhibits come from an Atlantis-type lost world, while aquariums line the walls. The third, and perhaps the most oddball, sets you up in a converted hotel that is haunted by spirits who become the exhibits you can showcase to the public, with players building them rooms to live in based on the time period the ghosts originally existed in.

Like the personified ghosts, each treasure or relic is bursting with originality and wit, as large exotic plants can pull in members of the public, like a Venus fly trap, while ghosts will break free of their contained rooms to wreak havoc among your guests, yearning to return to their lives in the long passed industrial revolution. The trademark humour is spread throughout, and it never gets old, always dropping in to make you smile.

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What starts as a pretty simple experiment in running a museum soon becomes one of juggling a seemingly endless list of tasks. Where Two Point Museum breaks from previous entries is in the acquisition of the exhibits. While other sims would simply show you a catalogue of options, your museum will only score great relics and treasures by you sending out explorers, sometimes with security, or items that boost their treasure hunting, for them to pillage the goods and bring it back for exhibiting. Think Britain looting exotic countries, and you’re on the right track.

The expedition map sprawls out into different areas, all themed, so you can add to your rooms with the right items. As your career as curator extends out, these tours get longer and more treacherous - you’ll sometimes need to advise your explorers when they’re in peril - but of course, this yields better treasures. Placing them in your museum will pull in crowds, and it’s up to you to keep those guests entertained and informed.

We’re not educating students or fixing up members of the public here, so everything centres on ‘buzz,’ which is earned by displaying great exhibits, adding decoration, and keeping them within a running theme. At first, you can plonk everything down wherever you like, but as time passes, you need to be more strategic, otherwise you can’t set up guided tours of the building with efficiency.

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There’s much more than just your exhibits to consider, however. Plenty goes on behind the scenes as you can use a workshop to build entertaining objects for kids (who don’t learn as well adults do) or one-off items to use on expeditions. A training room keeps your staff ticking along and improving in their daily roles. There’s also a chance to break down duplicate exhibits to boost your standing in the theme. For example, if you find another of those huge footprints, you can scan it and break it down to boost your museum’s expertise in prehistory, and unlock more decorative items.

Doing this will also unlock perks that can be attached to displays to earn more buzz, or stop dust gathering, making the object more appealing. It’s a nice diversion that keeps you coming back to older areas of the map rather than just pushing on to new places. It also quietly boosts your overall standings, which will become even more important as your curator rating goes up.

Once several hours have passed, and you’ve found your feet in the world of antiquities, more and more challenges will be thrown at you. This might be budgetary concerns as your staff demand higher wages, or the expeditions become so dangerous your explorers are returning with exotic diseases, or even being outright killed by wildlife. There’s always a solution, but soon you’re spinning so many plates, it can feel dizzying.

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That’s not a complaint, though. The challenge steadily increases at a pace that suits the environment, and they’re always dropped on you in the way you’d expect - with humour and ease. After sinking in over 30 hours, I was chasing better star ratings on my museums and unlocking one-off challenges to make me a better curator. One such challenge looks at improving the security of an already established museum, as local gangs try to pilfer exhibits or empty your donation bins. It changes the pace but also tests what you’ve learned, usually offering new ways to think out a problem.

The latter two museums expand the concepts even further, with one taking your explorers to outer space and discovering alien relics; the other has you designing machines and technology as a showcase of scientific endeavour. I didn’t find either of these as appealing as the traditional idea of what a museum is, but there was no denying the sheer scope on offer for the long-term player.

After many more hours, I ended up doing what I always do, and settled into the sandbox mode, where I could start my curating career from scratch. Here, the game comes into its own as you can mix and match from all maps, build an epic museum by buying new parcels of land, dedicating wings to themes, and establishing yourself for the long haul with marketing campaigns and celebrity appearances.

It seems everything has been thought of, and this is one of those games that is hard to find fault with. Your mileage will vary based on whether you like the idea of museums and curated experiences. It’s a very different beast to the previous two titles in the franchise. I can’t find anything to really nitpick over, aside from perhaps the repetitive nature of the humour and voiceovers that carry on throughout.

Writing this review has only made me love the game more, because I’m sitting here reflecting on the lovely moments of achieving success through the loops of exploring and finding cool stuff to line the halls of my buildings. As far as I’m concerned, this is the best entry in the Two Point series and if you were already a fan of those, you’re going to adore this trip through history.

Pros: Delightful management experience, great design of the exhibits, engaging campaign

Cons: Repetitive humour

For fans of: Theme Park, Two Point Hospital, The Sims

9/10: Exceptional

Two Point Museum is available 27 February for PC (version tested, on Steam Deck), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S. A review code was provided by the publisher. Read a guide to our review scores here.