I am still slowly digesting Two Point Hospital content, and here comes a new DLC!
Bigfoot opens up a new area of the map in snowy mountains, containing three very challenging scenarios. The pre-requisite to unlock Bigfoot is obtaining one star in Flemmington, which itself requires a good amount of hours played to reach, but is nothing in comparison to what you will be asked to do here.
Travel to the Underlook Hotel (a little Shining humor), Swelbard or Roquefort Castle and try your best to keep your finances afloat, as you won’t be earning any income from cures, diagnosis or vending machines. The only way to get some cash is by completing goals, so save your bucks and don’t build everything right away, because soon enough you will need to complete a particular goal and have no money to do so. I found myself stuck several times restarting because of a few particular goals: train or promote staff, launch marketing campaigns, increase room level… all of which cost money! Start slow and take it easy. These hospitals will be time-consuming and completing them successfully will require you to put in practice everything you’ve learned about managing a hospital in previous stages.
Bigfoot comes with a few new conditions aptly named for the cold weather, such as Cold Shoulder, Brain Freeze, Aurora Snorealis, Face Plant and Half Pipe. Nine of them are visual and include new animations on patients, but there are over 30 new diseases in total. With them come three new treatment rooms: the Doghouse, Urban Mythology and Reanimation. A number of new items becomes available (some unlocked with Kudos) including several winter-themed and even festive Christmas decorations, new vending machines and a furnace to keep up with the heating demands.
Competent staff is scarce, so marketing campaigns to attract staff, training and research will be a major focus in these hospitals. Having enough staff to cover the rooms and training them accordingly will add to the challenge of keeping a positive cash flow. Add to that the bad press and reputation problems, and all this turns these three scenarios into quite the struggle!
I’ll have to say, I normally don’t purchase DLC packs, but this is one developer I don’t mind supporting. The Bigfoot DLC pack is far from being just an item add-on, as certain publishers love releasing just to milk their franchises. It’s proper content that fits into Two Point Hospital perfectly, adding hours of gameplay and some pretty tough challenges, improving the longevity and replayability of what is already an excellent game.