Time sure flies doesn’t it. This time a year ago we were being flooded with a never ending parade of games. One of those games was Two Point Museum, the third game in the Two Point franchise.
The Two Point series has been one of the biggest in the management/simulation since first debuting with Two Point Hospital back in 2018. Two Point Hospital would go on to sell over a million copies and be played by 5 million thanks in large part to a partnership with Xbox and its Game Pass service. It was about as good of a debut as a studio could hope as they aimed to establish themselves as fans quite enjoyed building a quirky hospital.
Two Point Campus followed 4 years later bringing its unique style and game play to a setting rarely seen, a university. While we never got sales or player figures for Campus, everything suggests the game did quite well. It certainly did well with critics as it sits at an impressive 83 on Metacritic, the same as Two Point Hospital.
In our review we said “Two Point Museum offers a refreshing take on management simulation with its innovative expedition mechanic and diverse museum themes, injecting both challenge and charm into the gameplay.”
Having been a fan of both games, even getting the full 100% completion on Two Point Campus, I was eagerly anticipating what was next from the studio. I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t see a Museum game coming, though based on how outside the box Two Point Studios thinks, I probably should have.
Museum stayed true to the series, bringing its cheeky comedy and crazy exhibits to life. For a series that is so out there with the premise, the actual management side of things is quite refined and highly effective. The one major change Museum brought however was its expeditions.
Players would have to send staff out on trips to bring home the expeditions that brought in the customers. It was an added layer to the management system as staff would have to leave for awhile, leaving gaps in coverage for admission booths, security rounds and of course the maintenance of the exhibits themselves.
While games these days often take 5-6 years to develop, Two Point Museum marks the third game in the franchise in less than 10 years. What makes it all the more impressive is how much content the studio puts out post launch, and Two Point Museum has been no different.
With 2 big DLC’s and multiple free additions, Two Point Museum has only grown from its already solid base, all in just its first year.
Recently I was able to chat with Abby Reynolds, Community Manager at Two Point Studios as well as Design Director Ben Haskins. During our time we were able to look back on the successes of the first year of Two Point Museum as well as discuss a bit of the future and whats coming up with future collaborations, updates and more.
Thanks for joining us today to celebrate Two Point Museum’s first anniversary! It’s been quite a jam-packed first year with the main release as well as the Fantasy Finds & Zooseum updates. How have you felt about the game’s reception both for the initial release and the two DLCs?
Abby Reynolds: Thanks for having us! It has honestly been an overwhelmingly positive year, we couldn’t ask for a better community of gamers surrounding the Two Point games, and sharing in their discovery and joy for Museum has been a rollercoaster of positivity. We knew from the first playable stages of Museum that we had the ‘fun’ factor, but there’s always that question of how something will land, and the initial lead up to launch has us refreshing Wishlists and waiting, things really landed and became real as creators were streaming the game, and the initial reviews started coming in, and it’s been an absolute pleasure working on each beat from then onwards.
Both DLCs landed well as well, and we’ve loved seeing the players speculate on future updates, both DLC and Digiverse going forward, and they continue to impress us with what they build and achieve in the game.
Have you reached your internal goals from a sales perspective? I recall Two Point Hospital you were hoping for 650k in your first year and you blew past that.
Abby Reynolds: Two Point Museum has exceeded our expectations and we’re so happy to see so many players enjoying playing!
I’ve been a fan of the Two Point series since it first began back in 2018. The studio and series has come along way in such a short time. In today’s day and age where we see a studio releasing a new game every 5-6 years you have managed to release every about 3. How have you been able to manage such quick turnarounds while still maintaining great quality and creativity?
Abby Reynolds: One of the advantages we’ve had with the Two Point series is that we’ve been able to build on a really strong foundation. With each game, we’re not starting from scratch — we’re evolving systems, technology, and ideas that the team already knows well.
A big part of it also comes down to the team. We have a very experienced group of developers who have worked together for a long time and have a shared understanding of what makes a Two Point game feel right. That familiarity helps us make decisions quickly and focus our energy. Quality is very important to us – we spend a lot of time ensuring that everything that we do is the highest quality possible!
As mentioned earlier you have already released 2 DLC updates for Two Point Museum in its first year. Do you have a roadmap for year 2 or an idea of how much content you want to add to Museum?
Abby Reynolds: We were really excited to share our plans looking forward into 2026, for now, we’ve revealed our roadmap for spring-time this year, which includes a major free update alongside new Digiverse Rifts and our next DLC, too. Version 8.0, which is fast-approaching, is delivering on top community requests, we can’t wait to see it released for folks to enjoy.
The Digiverse let players add exhibits from some fan favourite games, like DREDGE and Vampire Survivors, is the plan for this to continue these fun collaborations or will we see different mechanics introduced via the rifts?
Abby Reynolds: We’re buzzing to release future collaborations; it’s been a rewarding challenge to work alongside teams from some of our favourite games. The team always strives to make each new Rift feel unique, whether that’s by adapting Aberations and Sanity from DREDGE to work in Museum, or by bringing community-favourite Vampire Survivor weapons to the game for staff to use. There are multiple Rifts coming this spring, which will each have it’s unique spin on curation.
I am always interested in hearing how a studio decides how much they want to continue working on a title versus moving on to the next project. Many would automatically think you’d want to move on to the next project as soon as possible as a new game is more likely to bring in money than a free update or paid DLC. When making decisions like that, what’s behind it? Is it simply working on the current game until you are out of ideas, perhaps until SEGA says ok its time to move on, or something much more complex?
Ben Huskins: There are a few factors really. We have so many ideas throughout development, they can’t all make the cut, so when the game releases we usually have a backlog of umpteen things we’d still like to do with it. With Two Point Museum, we knew we’d eventually add more exhibit themes, and we had plenty of options on the list, but we wanted to give them the time and focus to really do them justice.
Of course, those are just our own ideas. Once the game is out there, we want to see what is resonating with the community, what our players still want, and what we could improve. We thrive on that feedback really. So with all of our games we set aside plenty of time for quality-of-life updates, free content, and paid DLC to realise some of those meatier ideas. Museum is a year old now, and in that time it’s become the pristine exhibit we always dreamed it could be!
In practical terms, it makes sense for the team too. Even if we knew what project we wanted to do next, we couldn’t move everyone over to it at the same time. New projects need time to breathe, time for prototyping and exploring ideas, and time for the team to gradually ramp up. So really it’s a carefully choreographed process with projects overlapping and interweaving, like some sort of intricate dance.
You had mentioned in the lead-up to release last year that you had many ideas for the next game before ultimately landing on a Museum. I think that was a great idea as it really is a unique setting for a simulation. Every time you announce a game I think everyone is expecting the more traditional simulation settings like a Zoo and you had mentioned a Prison before as well. You certainly dabbled in the idea a little bit with the Zooseum update. Without giving away too much (unless you want to announce a new game here today!) What are a couple of settings you might hope to one day explore?
Abby Reynolds: The team always has some top ideas banked; ultimately, we felt Museum was the perfect setting for us to put a Two Point spin on it. Once we’d settled on the first themes of botany, prehistory and supernatural, as soon as we started ideation for aquarium, things really ‘snapped’ into place, and suddenly the scope of what a ‘museum’ is opened up to a ton of creative options for the game.
We of course always factor in top community requests, and thing likes Zoo and Theme Park come up very often, but ultimately, the decision is to always go in a direction that the team feels passionate about, and sometimes the most-obvious themes have smaller scope for ingenuity. At the moment, Museum is very much our primary focus, and Zooseum was the perfect fit for both the game, but also for the players, as we really felt we nailed that ‘Zoo Tycoon’ vibe and nostalgia.
I consider the Two Point games to be amongst the most creative and bold in all of gaming, not just management/simulators. Is there one or two ideas for Museum that you wanted in the game but just for whatever reason weren’t able to get it in?
Ben Huskins: Well firstly, that’s high praise indeed, thank you! I hope we can continue to live up to that.
Early in Museum’s development we floated the idea of actually following your teams on expeditions and having on-location management of the expedition itself, partly inspired by the Archaeology course in Two Point Campus where you’d see students beavering away at a dig site to uncover miscellaneous artefacts and assorted trash from around the campus grounds. It was a bit of a mad idea to be honest, and ultimately we steered away from it as it would have required us to build a whole extra game within the game. We wanted to keep things focused on the museum itself rather than turn the game into Two Point Expedition… At the end of the day, the expedition system we ended up with is better for the game, it gives you the flavour of the expeditions and conjures images of what could be happening, with enough interaction to add meaningful gameplay choices, but without distracting from your museum.
I would elaborate on some of the other ideas that had to be wheeled into the big warehouse of lost game features, but who knows, there’s a chance they might still make it into the game in a future update…
Taking a step back and looking at the overall picture of the entire franchise now you’ve certainly hit many milestones and in my opinion been at the forefront of the boom we’ve seen in the industry when it comes to management style simulators. Can you reflect a bit on the last decade or so of developing Two Point games and where you started versus where you are today?
Ben Huskins: What a journey it’s been. Strange to think back to day one in summer 2016 when a handful of experienced devs set up camp in a tiny little office in Farnham and started creating a world for our ‘little people games’. Hospital was step one, but the long-term dream was to build a series of games that live in our own made-up world – thus Two Point County was born. Campus allowed us to try something fresh and unique and expand the scope of our world. Museum in a lot of ways is the culmination of everything we’ve learnt on our journey so far, and I think it’s our best game to date. Three games later and Two Point County almost feels like a real (albeit somewhat peculiar) place, with characters, locations, and even cheesy snacks that have come to life more than we ever imagined.
The original pillars of our games still stand too: making games with charm and personality, games that make people smile, and games with accessible depth that welcome new and advanced players alike. Really they’re at the heart of everything we do, and I think they will continue to drive us as we expand the world of Two Point County in new and exciting directions.
Just lastly, here this isn’t so much a question but just opening it up for you to say anything you might like on the present and future of Two Point Museum/Two Point in general!
Ben Huskins: A year since Two Point Museum released, we’ve been amazed by the response so far. We get so many great suggestions and feedback from the community, so we’re keen to keep updating the game while people are playing it and enjoying it. The Digiverse collaborations with other games have been so much fun too, and it’s been a real honour opening up our little museum game to become a celebration of other great video games that bring us joy. Long may it continue.
As for the next ten years of Two Point Studios, hopefully we can continue to surprise and delight players, and make even bigger and better games. There’s a lot more to explore in Two Point County.
What’s your favourite Two Point game? Let us know in the comments or head over to the Gamer Social Club Discord and chat your favourite games with our community.
