If there’s one thing we need in life that goes criminally underappreciated, it’s education. Ejucashun kan turns a sentinse lik this into something that can be concise and precise, or eloquent and needlessly protracted. From students to heads of state, veterinarians to loquacious video producers — we all could do with a little more of it. SEGA and Two Point Studios know the importance of education, so they invited us down to the Two Point Studios’ HQ to learn a thing or two about their upcoming management sim, Two Point Campus. We got a good working day’s worth of time with it, so how does it hold up? Are we not educated?
First and foremost, this isn’t Two Point Hospital. It bears a lot of the same hallmarks and DNA due to it coming from the same developers and being the same sim genre, but the core loop is definitely not the same. For one thing, the tools at your disposal are even more flexible than ever; gone are the limited buildings and their weird shapes that make room organisation a nightmare, for now you can expand, contract, or reshape any building you desire, or even create new ones, which for Campus’ arguably more complex systems is a huge boon.
Speaking of complex systems, the approach is quite different this time around. Rather than churning out patients and treating them as objects in need of little more than fixing, you’ll have to keep your students not only learned, but also happy. You can do this by giving them nice dorm rooms to enjoy, social spaces to develop relationships (which actually affect various mechanics), and host parties to keep their spirits high. You’ll also run the nice little risk of becoming attached to some of the students, as they’ll be hanging around for three blinkin’ years, provided they don’t fail of course.
One feature that really stood out to us was the ability to ‘favourite’ students, perhaps because they’re moaning and threatening to leave and you want to keep tabs on them to improve their lot in life. The game will even give you little updates on what they’re up to, such as popping over to the Student Union for a milkshake, or becoming best friends with a student whose surname is also ‘Studmuffin’.
And you’ll need to be on your toes, as each student will be taking different subjects within their course. Not a big deal for most of them, but some subjects require specific objects in specific rooms, so if you’ve crammed all you can in your Potions room and suddenly a student needs a card table or something, you’d better start shuffling or expanding as they may not pass without it.
You’ll also get new students each year, and with every one of them hanging around for three of them you’ll need to expand your campus significantly for the second and third years as you take on more and more students. The game offers plenty of time in order to do this, but you won’t be earning any money keeping time at a standstill, so forward planning is essential.
Performance is largely strong as well for a game of this complexity on a system this small. Drops were common in the build we played but didn’t affect gameplay, however that may well be a sticking point for a few people out there. We personally don’t have a problem with a game like this running into some dropped frames when things get busy, but if that’s something that takes a game down a grade or two in your eyes, keep your performance expectations in mind.
If you’re into management sims, we highly recommend you keep your sights on Two Point Campus. Despite spending hours with the game, we’re not only gagging to get right back into it but also feel like there’s so much more we’ve yet to discover. It’s scratching that Two Point Hospital itch in a wholly different way, and we’re eagerly sharpening our fingernails in anticipation.
We can’t wait to learn more.
Two Point Campus is scheduled to launch on Switch on 9th August 2022.
