Two Level Studios has actually cornered the area of interest market of taking a straight-laced idea and contorting it into one thing utterly unserious, but I used to be nonetheless stunned by simply how excellently crafted Two Level Museum is. It is a improbable evolution on its final two video games, Two Level Hospital and Two Level Campus, simply being the developer’s biggest, quirkiest administration sim up to now.
Must Know
What’s it? The threequel to Two Level Studios’ more and more zany sequence of administration sims.
Launch date March 4, 2025
Anticipate to pay $30/£25
Developer Two Level Studios
Writer Sega
Reviewed on [NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT, 32GB RAM]
Steam Deck Verified
Hyperlink Official web site
Examine Amazon
There are 5 museums to handle throughout the sport’s marketing campaign, every one simply totally different sufficient to all the time be throwing new issues my manner. I began out in Memento Mile, a really run-of-the-mill institution sporting dusty fossils. My first runthrough there gave me little or no duty in preserving every part managed, largely preserving me tied into the essential loop of sending workers out on expeditions, displaying and adorning no matter they introduced again after which watching the cash roll in.
As I progressed, nonetheless, I started taking possession over aquarium Passwater Cove, interactive haunted lodge Wailon Lodge, and Pebberley Heights, a museum on a sky-high platform the place displays rain down from above.
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As an actual life museum worker, I am a bit confused by the quantity of pirate ghosts in Two Level Museum—but it surely’s not going to cease me attempting to take advantage of life like displays I can
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Thank Goodness You are Right here! evaluation
The marketing campaign had me darting between every one, requiring me to unfold my day out between all 5 with a purpose to progress and unleash Two Level Museum’s full scale of duty and chaotic antics. Having to leap between every map actually helped to maintain issues recent, and meant that every time I returned I used to be given new challenges to fit into the present areas I would carved out.
Now revisiting Memento Mile, I used to be compelled to shake up my meticulously designed area to include new mechanics like recognizing vandals, internet hosting guided excursions, and displaying extra superior displays that needed to be stored in particular situations, like a dry local weather or with a continuing cool breeze, lest the ice-blocked caveman break away and begin terrorising visitors.
However folding in these new challenges was additionally accompanied by a steadily rising assortment of beautiful decorations to adorn my museum partitions and flooring with. The customisation in Two Level Museum is fab, particularly for my Sims-addled mind, with loads of themed decorations for every museum together with a handful of generic set dressings. I do want there’d been extra number of wallpapers and flooring, however I used to be virtually drowning in rad furnishings gadgets by the point I used to be wrapping up my playtime for this evaluation. I by no means knew I may take pleasure in fastidiously inserting lavatory hand dryers as a lot as I did.
I could not sit there taking part in exhibition dress-up without end, and Two Level Museum’s plate spinning ramped up far faster than I may have anticipated. Whereas I began off hiring primarily based on vibes alone (learn: I appreciated their foolish fake-British names), every workers member’s hooked up qualification and persona traits are important. An skilled would possibly have the ability to analyse displays 50% sooner, however they are a boring previous soul who’ll suck the life out of any guided excursions they conduct.
Sure expeditions require workers with a selected qualification, like Survival Abilities or Pilot Wings, however they’ll additionally assist to negate sure harmful random encounters that may happen whereas retrieving new museum shows. Paying consideration when hiring and making use of the coaching room to offer my arduous working workers new {qualifications} turned tremendous essential to minimise accidents or cease workers from going MIA all collectively.
I went from treating Two Level Museum like a glorified Sims to all of the sudden sitting there at my desk, muttering underneath my breath: “Shit, I am haemorrhaging cash, my workers are sad, and I can not match one other lavatory on this goddamn constructing.”
Artwork-rageous antics
As Two Level Museum threw extra issues at me, it compelled me to actually sit there and begin considering extra strategically. Extra managerially. The sport provides a couple of instruments to assist set up the movement and preserve issues chugging alongside: Zone assignments let me define totally different areas throughout every museum after which assign workers to them so they do not go wandering off midway throughout the map. I may chuck down one-way doorways to cease folks circling again spherical, or create staff-only entrances with corridors that might rapidly ferry my staff to essential areas throughout every museum. Every time the sport plonked a brand new museum down in entrance of me, I felt like I had that little extra foresight and pre-planning behind me, and I actually hit my groove by the point I used to be despatched off to Pebberley Heights and the quirky science facility Bungle Wasteland.
I did, nonetheless, additionally turn out to be more and more extra pissed off with sure points of Two Level Museum as I progressed. Throughout the instances that I used to be dropping cash, or failing to completely fulfill VIP visitors and first faculty visits, I usually struggled to pinpoint precisely why. Although I used to be in a position to pull up an summary of my funds, the sport does not actually level out the place you are going mistaken. Even after culling workers numbers and bumping up ticket costs—one thing which didn’t go down effectively with my visitors—I used to be nonetheless struggling to interrupt even on certainly one of my maps.
I went from treating Two Level Museum like a glorified Sims to all of the sudden sitting there at my desk, muttering underneath my breath: ‘Shit, I am haemorrhaging cash, my workers are sad, and I can not match one other lavatory on this goddamn constructing.’
The museum score panel affords little-to-no constructive suggestions, even when my score was hovering within the mid 60s. “These displays are nice!” and “I am actually having fun with the museum!” took everlasting residence within the frequent ideas column, which weren’t precisely useful when attempting to get into the main points of why my visitor happiness proportion wasn’t essentially reflecting these feedback.
Name it a talent situation, which it type of is, and I wasn’t in search of a play-by-play, however I could not assist however want Two Level Museum did a greater job of claiming “Hey, here is the place you are messing up, fool.” Typically icons would pop up of people being thirsty, or their bladder match to burst, however I nonetheless appeared to get these even when the constructing was bursting with an abundance of cafeterias, merchandising machines, and bogs. I might additionally sometimes get icons that I did not perceive in any respect, and regardless of my efforts I used to be unable to discern precisely what the sport was attempting to inform me.
Something is fossible
It is my fundamental grievance in what’s in any other case a really strong, stellar expertise—bar the odd event the place the Zany British Tannoy Voiceover was somewhat too zany, as I used to be commonly listening to the identical voicelines time and again. Saying that, I did notably admire the extra meta-leaning acknowledgement of her earlier undertakings as a hospital and school campus announcer, and Jane Webley does completely nail that barely sarcastic edge that we Brits merely cannot resist.
My marketing campaign cash woes additionally impressed me to go all-out in Two Level Museum’s sandbox mode, which has an enormous number of drop-down menus and sliders of settings to tweak alongside three problem presets. It signifies that hardcore administration simmers may give themselves a tough-as-nails problem they will not essentially get from the marketing campaign, whereas I can return to treating the entire thing like a well-cultured dollhouse.
I did not get to spend a ton of time within the sandbox mode whereas I used to be taking part in via for this evaluation, since I used to be extra centered on experiencing the development from the marketing campaign, however that is finally what Two Level Museum needs you to do anyway. Get drip-fed the intricacies one-by-one earlier than letting all of it flood your veins later down the road. I already know I will be dipping again in on a much less skilled foundation, simply to craft the exhibitions of my goals.
If you happen to’ve loved Two Level Hospital and Two Level Campus, it is an absolute no-brainer that you just give Two Level Museum a strive. I would argue that, as an idea, a museum administration sim is probably the most endearing out of all of them, and it has been a pleasure to see simply how nice a canvas the idea has been for Two Level Studios to actually go ham on its signature whimsy.
And if sterilised medical institutes and dorms crammed with attractive younger adults aren’t your factor, the cosiness that the common-or-garden museum affords is likely to be simply the factor you have to reel you into what is well one of many neatest, most approachable administration sims in current reminiscence.
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The Verdict
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Two Level Museum
Two Level Museum is the best, cosiest, and most advanced iteration of the method up to now, even when its extra obtuse points prevented me from turning into a professional curator.
TOPICS
Mollie Taylor
Options Producer
Mollie spent her early childhood deeply invested in video games like Killer Intuition, Toontown and Audition On-line, which proceed to kind the pillars of her persona at the moment. She joined PC Gamer in 2020 as a information author and now lends her experience to put in writing a wealth of options, guides and opinions with a splash of chaos. She will be able to usually be discovered inflicting mischief in Closing Fantasy 14, utilizing these experiences to put in writing neat issues about her favorite MMO. When she’s not looking at her bunny lady she will be discovered sweating out rhythm video games, pretending to be good at combating video games or spending far an excessive amount of cash at her native arcade.
