Two Point Campus is even better than its predecessor – hands-on preview

Theme Hospital is one of my favorite games. For me, it’s just one of those games, and even a few bars of iconic music gives me a rush of nostalgia – so I’m naturally excited when the game gets a spiritual successor decades later: two o’clock hospital.

Back in 2018, pre-release, I’m excited. I call Two Points “a truly worthy legacy” – and I mean it. But, at the same time, in the final version, something surprised me. I don’t like it like Theme Hospital. I found myself back at the original, which is playable in high resolution on modern hardware with a fan remake called CorsixTH.i walk in two o’clock campus So cautiously optimistic. The reason I left was a simple fact: it felt more like the successor to Theme Hospital.

Let me explain. While I love Two Point Hospital, in many ways it feels like the easiest and safest spiritual successor that could be designed. It takes the theme hospital and recreates it with modern technology and convenience, but in a sense it feels like an echo of what was great before. Two Point Campus is the best of both worlds; it blindly respects its roots, but also wholeheartedly owns its new premises. The result is a game that feels like it has more of the magic that makes Theme Hospital great.

If you’re not familiar, this new environment – as the name suggests – is a college campus. The core concept is the same, though: You are the god-like hands in the sky, the head of the agency, doing everything from balancing budgets to recruiting staff to designing the architectural layout of your hallowed study halls.

This setup opens up a lot of cool opportunities. For example, in one lengthy practice, I played four levels – rather than differentiated by different diseases, they were distinct schools. Freshleigh Meadows, tutoring level, is a traditional school with a focus on science. But the second level is the food academy that trains future chefs. The third level teaches noble knights (including equestrian events), and the fourth is basically Hogwarts – but without all the nasty real-world baggage. One of the follow-up options that wasn’t in this version was Joker School, something that many very online gamers know. Very neat.

As in the hospital game, there is a certain level of crossover. For example, you can teach science at Knight School, but each campus has its own core curriculum and unique feel, at least in these early stages of the game. There are also broad student needs that don’t change from one campus to another; you’ll want to build dorms for your resident faculty (which also generates additional income), plus something like a student union that provides them with A space for gathering and relaxing.

All of this is also important because the needs of students feel more important on campus at Two Points. In hospital games, your job is basically to keep people comfortable enough to stay long enough to be cured. But in Campus, your students have actual grades—if they’re happier and more comfortable, they’re more likely to perform better on their end-of-year exams. Better grades mean more money and more prestige, so you’ll definitely pay more attention to the well-being and well-being of each character you take care of.

There are also more nuances to this happiness. Basic needs like hydrating and eating, maintaining a comfortable temperature, or needing to go to the toilet still exist, but you also have to place objects and rooms to provide entertainment, foster friendships, or improve academic performance. All of these things affect student performance and therefore your performance.

Honestly, in fact, you probably don’t do much more than other games of this type, and it’s not much different. Something about this setting does work, though. It makes busy work feel less like busy work and gives you more specific statistics in the form of student grades and performance. You don’t end up in a situation where you miss an off-aircraft death because you’re busy elsewhere, which can have huge negative consequences. Instead, you focus on the bigger picture – it feels great.

You might say, I really like it. These games are hard to really preview because the first few levels are just introduction concepts – the real turntable action comes later as what is learned from each level will conflict and make your life very difficult. But so far, Two Point Campus is not only a well-deserved successor to its immediate predecessor, but also the old game that inspired this new series. This is no easy task.

Two Point Campus is coming to PC, Mac, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on August 9. A three-month delay was announced earlier this year. This will also be the first day of launch for Xbox Games Pass.