2020 was a pretty good year for management games, but nothing released in the past 12 months has impressed us enough to squeeze its way into our best management games list. Don’t worry, though – it’s only because there are already so many classics to choose from. If you’re looking for something to sink into over the holidays, check out our picks below.

(more…)

As a nostalgia trip, Sonic Mania is impeccably precise. So, naturally, you’ll want to really nail those throwback kicks by, uh, playing it through an unrelated publisher’s digital subscription service. The blue blur and his grossly mutated twin-tailed fox friend are now sprinting through EA’s Origin Access Premiere service, with Two Point Hospital and Endless Legend set to join them in the near future.

(more…)

I played 1997’s weirdly named Theme Hospital a fair amount in my teen years, but despite my love of both management games and very silly things, I never got around to playing 2018’s spiritual sequel, the equally weirdly named Two Point Hospital. With the game coming to consoles this week, however, I thought now would be a fine moment to dive in and see what I’d been missing. The answer is: a management game that’s so silly, it makes me stop worrying about actually managing.

(more…)

Microsoft’s subscription-based stable of games just keeps growing like some cursed alien creature in a sci-fi show. It won’t stop till its giant, gelatinous self fills every corner of the ship, captain! Microsoft are adding five more games to the Xbox Game Pass on PC in the near future. Yakuza 0 and Two Point Hospital are on deck along with Wasteland Remastered, Reigns: Game Of Thrones, and Indivisible.

(more…)

Management games have been enjoying a bit of a renaissance in recent years, meaning there are now even better, more efficient ways to direct trains, corral visitors, lay down conveyor belts and profit, profit, profit than ever before. To that end, we’ve put on our builder hats and constructed a list of the best management games you can play on PC in 2020. Whether you want to be a budding city planner, wannabe farm herd or survive against the elements, there’s a game for you below.

(more…)

A lot of genres have had a resurgence over the past five years, but none more successfully than management games. There are now more ways to direct trains, lay conveyor belts, coral visitors and profit, profit, profit than you could play in a lifetime. The question is: which of these famous timesinks is worth your time, and which of the whipsmart new hires can compete against the hagard, seen-it-all old dogs?

That’s what this list is for. These are 20 best management games you can play right now on PC, in no particular order, and updated for 2019.

(more…)

I reckon that when I was growing up I spent longer reading the manuals for games than I did playing them. The thicker the better (as the someone said to the etc.), and if it were up to me every game would come with a chunky instruction booklet. The standard these days is the in-game tutorial, and many of them feel like afterthoughts. Either they re too bare bones to properly teach you how to play, leaving you to scroll through Wikis, or they re so boring that you rush through them and then forget everything you re told.

(more…)

Sega have snapped up another PC strategy studio, today announcing they’ve bought Two Point Hospital developers Two Point Studios. They haven’t stated the English studio’s price, but I trust payment was made in the form of a giant novelty cheque. Sega note that Two Point have “several” unannounced projects in the pipeline, in a dry business-y way, while the studio themselves just shouted on Twitter that “You can bet your bottom this means new, exciting management sims coming from us!”

(more…)

John had the presence of mind to take today off, after flying back from San Francisco on Sunday. Young Matt and I got a red eye that took off on Friday night and landed on Saturday afternoon. I didn t sleep for 30 hours, then slept for 12, was wired for the next 16, and then slept for another four. Which brings us to today, when I am writing these charts, unsure which meal I should be having next and shaking off a lingering dose of The Fear, which I get from long haul flying more than I ever did from hangovers.

With that in mind, it s me, back once again with the ill behaviour, to fill in doing the Steam Charts. I m very much flying by the seat of my pants here, so let s see what I come up with, shall we?

(more…)

A calamitous crossing of worlds has occurred in Two Point Hospital, the spiritual successor to Bullfrog’s Theme Hospital, with Half-Life headcrabs glomping onto heads and all manner of decorative doodads from Sega PC games scattering around hospitals. If you’ve not yet played the wacky hospital management sim, hey, you’re invited to try the whole thing for free this weekend on Steam. The trial weekend has just started, so hop to it. Well, don’t hop if you’re suffering from Hurty Leg, Premature Mummification, Night Fever, Lazy Bones, or Mucky Feet, in which case the doctor will see you now.

(more…)