Art feels like a natural fit for Two Point Museum, giving Two Point Studios plenty of room for puns, chaos, and creative new mechanics. Two Point Museum: Arty-Facts is the game’s third paid DLC, focusing on — you guessed it — art, facts, and artefacts. Arty-Facts ended up being a welcome surprise. Compared to Zooseum, this DLC felt slightly lighter in terms of content (it only took me around 10 hours to hit five stars), but still gave me that time management dopamine hit I love.
More Money For The Arts
Alongside the new museum, Arty-Facts introduces Art Experts, a fresh Expedition map, over 27 exhibits, and the Art Studio — which quickly became the room I spent an embarrassing amount of time decorating instead of actually managing my museum properly.
It’s is packed with cheeky riffs on famous artwork, with Two Point’s usual legally distinct takes on artists like Da Vinci, Dali, and Warhol. You collect these on Expeditions, along with other types of Performance Art you can host, like mime and music. I love Two Point Studio’s call backs to real life, and of course, puns — one of the series’ biggest strengths.
My Business Is To Create
What’s really different about Arty-Facts is the fact that you don’t only find exhibits on Expeditions. You actually CREATE original Art Exhibits in the aforementioned Art Studio room! It’s a stroke of ingenuity that deviates from its tried-and-true formula, finally letting me create exhibits instead of endlessly shipping them in from Expeditions.
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Art Experts aren’t just glorified painters either. They have different Emotional Ranges that affect the artwork they produce, impacting your guests in different ways. Turns out aggressively sad sculptures aren’t exactly great for customer satisfaction. Your Experts can also experience more emotions through Expeditions, giving them more range. You can also convey mixed emotions to guests to help them enjoy (or dislike) their experience even more!
Creating artwork works a bit like Expeditions, except instead of risking frostbite or death, your staff just suffer creatively (and literally). You pick an Artistic Approach ranging from Shallow (less time) to Deep (more time). Creating higher-rated works can also give you perks to upgrade your exhibits with. They’ll also need breaks from creating, so don’t think about stacking them back-to-back as they’ll start to burn out. We don’t want any ears cut off now, do we?
The Art Studio became one of my favourite rooms to decorate in the game. It felt like there was a lot more thought behind the decor and apparatus compared to others. You even had to purchase a separate Sculpting Station to make Sculptures and Statues, which also require different materials like clay, bronze, or marble to make. Just like the Science museums, you have to go on Expeditions to find material.
Going Once, Going Twice… SOLD!
Art wouldn’t be complete without auctions, and Arty-Facts didn’t leave this out. You’re regularly asked to provide artwork to Snoteby’s Auction House. They’re also a great way to quietly offload the ugly statues you regret commissioning in the first place — and make money simultaneously.
Overall, auctions don’t drastically change how you play, but they do make the museum feel more alive and authentic. It also helps having more exhibits around to keep up that Buzz. They’re not mandatory either, which I appreciated.
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Along with priceless artwork, however, come robberies. While this feature was always present, they’ve made it more high-stakes in Arty-Facts. Thieves are way harder to spot, and even leave Forgeries behind! This is fine, because your guests might not even be able to tell the difference, although it does affect your museum’s Buzz. The forgery system feels like it’s building toward a larger investigation mechanic that never quite materialises. It’s still a great way to build on what’s already in the game, though.
Between Auctions and more targeted heists, I felt like I constantly needed to hire Art Experts to keep the creativity flowing, while still going on Expeditions compared to the other museums. It presented a fun challenge to keep everything balanced, which I relished instead of getting a copypasta of other DLC content.
A Worthwhile Visit
While Two Point Museum: Arty-Facts feels lighter and less demanding than Zooseum, Two Point Studios still delivered a solid DLC again. Aside from one annoying bug that kept murdering the soundtrack every few minutes, I had a great time turning Undee Docks into an aggressively pretentious art institution. It’s even piqued my curiosity to go back and try their DLC, Fantasy Finds, which probably says enough on its own.
Quest Daily scores Two Point Museum: Arty Facts:
8/10
Two Point Museum: Arty-Facts is available now for $15.95 on PC via Steam and PlayStation 5.
A copy of Two Point Museum: Arty-Facts was supplied to Quest Daily for this review.
