Two Point Campus review – university was never this fun
Long ago, I was a muso. At school I was the kid who never had a lunchtime or afterschool spare between choirs, orchestras, and jazz bands. At university I spent as much time with the musical theatre society as I did studying for my actual music degree. And with Two Point Campus, this gives me one ultimate objective: to create the ultimate fantasy music school.
Two Point Campus reviewDeveloper: Two Point StudiosPublisher: SegaPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Releases 9th August on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch
Before that though, the basics. To those who’ve played spiritual predecessor Two Point Hospital, Two Point Campus will be very familiar. The two games are near-identical in their approach: take something typically mundane and make a game of it, adding a healthy dose of oddball British humour. The controls are reassuringly familiar, the art style bright, detailed and easily readable, and university life is accompanied by an appropriately 80s soundtrack for all the gossipy, John Hughes drama.
The game’s campaign is essentially an extended tutorial, each new level providing fresh challenges to explain core mechanics and systems, and serving as preparation for the endless customisable sandbox mode. Each campus begins as a blank slate of buildings ready to be filled with lecture halls, classrooms, dormitories, bathrooms, private tuition rooms, libraries, and more. Staff need to be hired to teach, clean up, and keep students happy. Students have their own needs which pop up in the form of mission requests: I need a party! I need a bookcase to study! I need a love bench! (More on that later).
The systems gradually layer up but never feel overwhelming, thanks to a lenient difficulty curve. The main challenge is balance: build too much and hire too many staff and you’ll quickly run out of money and be forced to take a pricey loan until more unwitting students join the chaos. That’s done by adding marketing rooms to attract new students, but has to be balanced with looking after the existing ones, who’ll need pastoral and medical care to make it to graduation.
Then there’s balancing tuition with entertainment: between classes students can join various clubs to provide buffs to their learning or walking speed, while student unions can host pop concerts, and lecture halls can screen films. There’s endless enjoyment just in juggling the day-to-day – always a new room to build, students to help, teachers to train – but what really elevates Two Point Campus beyond a set of smartly interlinking systems is its charm.
