The Best Strategy Game Of The Year Just Got A Must-Play Fantasy Expansion
Elementary.
Two Point Museum is one of the most inventive and compelling strategy games I’ve seen in years — and shockingly, it’s the first game to truly deliver on the idea of running your own museum. There’s no shortage of joy to be found in its quirky and absurd simulation, but one of the game’s best features has arrived post-launch, with its phenomenal Fantasy Finds paid update. This expansion doesn’t just add a whole new set of exhibits, guests, and experts, but essentially turns one of Two Point Museum’s core mechanics into a miniature Dungeons & Dragons adventure, raising an already smart strategy game to an entirely new level.
Fantasy Finds expands on the core structure of Two Point Museum, giving you a new expedition map to play with alongside a host of new features. Expeditions are how you gather your exhibits, sending Experts (a type of employee) out on dangerous missions to gather priceless fossils, fish, and even ghosts. While on expeditions, your Experts can contract illnesses or suffer injuries that take time to heal, affect their productivity, or even spread through your spick and span museum.
Like the rest of the Two Point series, Fantasy Finds puts a comedic twist on old tropes.
What makes Two Point Museum so compelling is balancing the cost of running your museum with attractions that make you money, as you micromanage everything to maximize guest satisfaction. It’s easy to pick up, but holds a remarkable amount of strategic depth, especially since each type of museum features remarkably different mechanics and goals, from having to keep fish alive to creating a terrifying ghost hotel.
Fantasy Finds takes that idea and runs with it, twisting the Expedition Map into a game within the game. Your Experts are turned into RPG party members with stats for strength, dexterity, intelligence, and luck. That ties into the expedition system, with the Fantasy Finds expeditions having recommended stats to avoid getting attacked by monsters, falling into traps, and so on. Some locations also require your intrepid workers to overcome obstacles, like a dragon.
Fantasy Finds’ Expedition Map adds a brilliant twist to the base game.
This then ties into other new mechanics, like how you can craft stat or situation-altering potions in your Workshop, or how exhibits you find can be equipped on workers. A pair of mythical boots I found could be given to an employee to drastically increase their speed, for example, but at the cost of having one less exhibit.
Fantasy Finds brilliantly creates new ways to use existing systems, giving the game new flavor in the process. The base game’s Expedition system was already great, but here it practically feels like a storybook adventure that doles out prizes. Fantasy Finds also continues the series’ comedic streak, from diminutive dwarves who excitedly eat at your new tavern-themed cafateria, to mimic chests that can eat your guests.
On top of gameplay changes, you’ll have a whole host of new exhibit items and decorations to build with.
More than anything, Fantasy Finds has solidified in my mind that Two Point Museum is one of the most creative management games I’ve ever seen. The sheer diversity and depth in its systems continues to be astounding, and if Two Point Museum gets more DLC, this first outing sets a very high bar.
