Are you a person who – as we say politely – really loves everything a a very special way? Maybe you’ve labeled and filled your kitchen cabinets with neat rows of boxes, or you always take a point in group projects because you know you’ll make better slides than everyone else?
You, my friend, are well-suited to management games — simulators that approximate what it would be like to run a zoo, or a hospital, or a city, or a university, or a theme park, or… you get the point. These Switch games let you fulfill your imagination of being in control of every minute matters, from staff salaries to the color of the balloons in your park. How do you win? When everything runs smoothly like the ending on the Joy-Con, that’s how.
Most of us will never get the chance to run a zoo, or a hospital, or a city, or a university, or a theme park, but we can play these games instead. We are succeeded (heh) to find out which management and tycoon games are the best on Switch, just for you!
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Publisher: Frontier Developments / Programmer: Frontier Developments
Jurassic World Evolution: The Complete Edition on Switch is a feature-packed and surprisingly playable port of the extremely fun and tactical business simulator that provides tons of fun for fans of the genre and Jurassic Park freaks alike. There are undoubtedly issues on handhelds where the visuals are pretty poor and the frame rate struggles here and there on the dock, but if you can deal with those issues you’ll find one of the easiest fun control sims available on the Switch right now . So who’s hungry?
Publisher: PRANK / Programmer: Two Point Studios
Going back to the “good old days”. Theme hospital by Bullfrog from the 90s, Two Point Hospital wraps the same irreverent humor into a modern game that introduces a whole new generation to the joys of medicine. This is a game about managing expectations as well as a hospital. Patients expect to be treated and cured, staff expect a pay rise, and health inspectors expect not to have to come and shut down the entire operation. In practice, it comes down to building a hospital and trying to keep the lights on, and as an added bonus, keep the patients alive.
The biggest compliment we can give Two Point Hospital is that it’s impossible not to have fun with it. It’s crazier than the episode Peelings and put through some of the most satisfying sim gameplay of any title this generation.
Oh, and the Jumbo Edition includes a ton of DLC, so it’s even better than the original!
Publisher: PRANK / Programmer: Two Point Studios
After the excellent Two Point Hospital released on Switch moments before the world was rocked by a global pandemic, Two Point Studios is at it again with Two Point Campus. If the name didn’t already make it clear, instead of running a hospital for money, Two Point Campus runs a college campus… for money. Capitalism and management simulators go hand in hand, what can you do?
Fortunately, Two Point Campus is a masterclass management simulation teeming with new creative ideas and a completely original approach to success. His useful ‘invest in students and they’ll invest in you’ strategy is a wonderful way to put a positive spin on an otherwise NPC exploitative genre.
Publisher: Double eleven / Programmer: Introversion software
Video games have treated us to all possible simulation jobs for years. We built hospitals, maintained zoos, farmed farmland, and even built roller coasters that were definitely not safe to ride.
But what about building and running your own prison? Now that’s a whole other kettle of fish indoors. Do you rule with an iron grip and risk mass unrest, or pamper your prisoners with lavish affection? Regardless of your management style, Prison Architect: Nintendo Switch Edition has every possible tool, resource and scenario you could ask for.
Publisher: Kalypso Media / Programmer: Limbic Entertainment
You’d be forgiven for thinking that a city builder/simulation like it is Tropic 6 maybe a bad fit for the Switch. The huge number of systems in the game, the number of individually monitored citizens in the archipelago… it’s something like a recipe for compromise. And, of course, there are there are compromises here – but far fewer than you might expect, and not to the actual detriment of the game.
We’d recommend this to genre novices as well as veterans; a very impressive plug-in with powerful controls and a user interface brilliantly suited for manual mode. It’s a hard, demanding game, but it never feels stressful, and juggling your industry, factional relationships, and the mood of your citizens can be completely absorbing.
Publisher: Software development / Programmer: Software development
If you’ve ever wanted to harness the power of industrialization, Factorio is definitely the game for you. Stranded in a strange alien world, you must find a way to survive and escape from this place using the remnants of technology left by whoever came here first, as well as your own innovations. This is a factory sim with a sci-fi aesthetic and just a touch of exploration. What starts simply turns into one of the most interesting driving simulations we’ve played.
Like the gears in an engine, everything in Factory has a purpose. There are few extras here, but what is present in this factory management simulation does the job well.
Publisher: No more robots / Programmer: Spring
We’ve all walked around the zoo and wondered how hard it is to run it. After all, you just need to put the animals in one place and prevent them from escaping, right? However, if the plethora of zoo management simulations on the market is anything to go by, there’s a lot more to it than that. While many games in this growing niche offer players the chance to delve into the finer details of zoo ownership, Let’s build a zoo it keeps things on the cartoonier, lighthearted side while still providing a decent challenge.
Publisher: Border / Programmer: Frontier Developments
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 has been riding the rails since way back in 2004, a wonderfully colorful and goofy yet satisfyingly deep sim that was the first in the long-running series to have its theme parks presented in three full dimensions – you can even jump into your elaborate creations for a terrifying first-person spin, if you’re brave enough.
The goal of the game here is simple: create amusement parks that will satisfy hordes of visitors and make you tons of sweet moolah so you can keep expanding, adding facilities, and building monstrous rollercoasters that strike a balance between being scary enough to excite but not so dangerous that players they end up covered by the handle or buried head first in the surrounding terrain.
Publisher: Digital curve / Programmer: Playsport games
Port of Motorsport Manager Mobile 3, Motorsport Manager is a handheld roller-coaster of emotions. This is mainly because the third entry in this mobile series is the first in years really embrace the feeling of hardcore realism.
There’s a mountain of systems and subsystems to juggle, and even with a beautifully designed guide, you’re really only scratching the surface of what’s going to happen once your career begins. Its presentation is dressed up with style so that it looks like something that came out of a Codemasters production, while the sheer depth into which you can delve will often stress and delight you as much as driving the car itself. Even if you’re not much of a fan of pro racing, the sleek presentation and impressive level of customization will definitely appeal to you.
