Management sims are typically known as complex experiences that require a lot of learning and strategic planning, but Two Point Campus challenges that idea with gusto. Available now on Xbox Game Pass, Two Point Campus brings a comedic flair to building your dream school, impeccably straddling the line between deep management and approachable fun.
Two Point Campus builds off of the formula established in Two Point Hospital, released in 2018. Essentially, your goal is to provide a stellar education for your students while juggling funds, staffing, student happiness, and more. In each level, you’ll need to construct buildings and rooms that support education or provide services for students, on top of making your overall campus as attractive as possible. For example, students need things like bathrooms and food for their basic needs, but you’ll also need to invest in entertainment options, like a Student Union, in order to keep them happy.
There’s a robust set of building tools that give you complete control over how your campus looks and feels. The UI makes it extremely easy to navigate the map and seamlessly place items, expand rooms, pick up staff and move them, and more. It’s easy to grasp the basics, but as you dig into Two Point Campus more you start discovering layers to its systems, like clubs students can join, and items that can help students build friendships and romances.
The game is split into a selection of levels that introduce different academic programs, which become increasingly ridiculous. While there are plenty of typical school activities in Two Point Campus, you can also run wizarding classes, teach archaeology digs, run a spy school, and helps a sports school become Cheeseball champions.
Seeing all of the wacky schools is a blast, but the different levels also do a fantastic job of mixing up gameplay and incrementally introducing all of the game’s mechanics. For example, the wizarding school Spiffinmoore bombards your students with hexes and meteors, causing medical and stress issues you need to contend with. Meanwhile, the spy school has moles infiltrate your classes and drag down your other student's performance, requiring you to watch carefully and expel the right student.
What Two Point Campus does exceptionally well is take away a lot of the busywork of your typical management sim. You need to place rooms and items and then hire staff, but your school can mostly run itself when you get everything set up. This means that you can focus more on making improvements and streamlining things, rather than having to manage the minute-to-minute actions of your staff. Two Point Campus constantly tries to make sure you’re having fun, and for the most part, it wildly succeeds.
All of this is highlighted by an utterly superb sense of humor that constantly keeps Two Point Campus interesting. Cooking students make giant hamburgers, security sprays intruders with a super soaker, and clown students honk each other’s noses during lectures. There’s loads of fun to be had in simply sitting back and watching the weird antics of your campus play out, especially once it’s filled with hundreds of students and staff.
There’s a real sense of accomplishment in turning an empty plot of land into a bustling university, and it’s easy to sink hours into improving and optimizing your campus. Two Point Campus sets out knowing exactly what it wants to do, and because of that, it makes for a management sim that’s easy to pick up and play, but equally easy to sink hours upon hours into.
Two Point Campus is available now on Xbox Game Pass.
