| Platforms | PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, GeForce Now, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac operating systems |
| Developers | Two Point Studios |
| Released | August 30, 2018 |
| Genres | Strategy Video Game |
| Mode | Multiplayer video game |
Two Point Hospital is a hospital management game, and if you were a fan of Bullfrog’s Theme Hospital back in the day you might think this looks a little familiar. And you would be right. Two Point Studios is home to many developers Bullfrog, and Two Point Hospital is Theme Hospital’s spiritual successor. I was obsessed with the theme hospital as a kid and actually made several episodes of a play though on my main channel a couple of years ago.
Click the card for that playlist of me slowly descending into madness before giving up at level 6. Everything about this game fills me with nostalgia, from the music choices and the receptionist’s announcements to the visual aesthetic, character designs, and bizarre diseases and ailments. A realistic hospital sim would probably be rather depressing. In Two Point Hospital, if a patient dies they might return as a ghost that your janitor needs to hoover up. It’s light-hearted and silly at every turn.
The gameplay is as you would expect for a management sim. You start off with an empty hospital building. You fill it up with all the rooms you need to diagnose and treat your patients, and manage your staff and finances, and hopefully you will make enough money to expand your healthcare empire.
However, the requirements for completing a level are rarely financial which I really appreciate. To advance you might need to cure a certain number of people, research a new treatment for a disease, or train enough staff members in new skills. Obviously I’m coming into this one as a fan of Theme Hospital. I think the earlier levels balance introducing new concepts gradually for new players, without being to slow and limiting to more experienced
players. The fact that you unlock the next level after completing the requirements for a 1-star hospital really helps this.
Each hospital can gain up to three stars with new objectives each time. This enables players to choose whether to stay in a level and practice optimising their hospital design, or move on and gain access to new gameplay mechanics and an increase in complexity.
Two Point Hospital offers a lot of flexibility in play style. If, like me, you just want to build your hospital and not get too bogged down in the details then you can just build more rooms and hire your staff, and get on with treating your patients. If you like to have a bit more control and fine tune things you can manage your staff a bit more by setting what jobs each of them
will do, plan out marketing campaigns to target patients with specific conditions, and tweak
the fees charged for each diagnostic tool and treatment.
I find Two Point Hospital very enjoyable to play. It doesn’t tend to put you under too much
pressure with time limits or fail conditions. Once you’ve got a handle on the basics for
building a successful hospital it’s fairly straightforward to keep your hospital going. You can work on the level goals at your own pace and spend some time just planning out your waiting area and putting in that new café you just unlocked.
As such, I highly recommend you to play this awesome relaxing game.
