With the outstanding success of Frozen District’s 2018 game House Flipper, it seemed almost inevitable in this era of HGTV and makeover mania that a sequel would get developed, after a gratuitous amount of DLC and add-ons for the first game. And so it was! Set to release on December 14, House Flipper 2 takes the concepts and systems of the original House Flipper game and updates them, but is it an upgrade worth investing in? Let’s take a walk through our House Flipper 2 review.
House Flipper 2 Review: Not Quite Back to Basics
Partially modeled on home renovation shows, House Flipper 2 has a wide scope of activities that it eases you into slowly. Instead of demolishing load-bearing walls, you start off with cleaning and unpacking skills, getting clients’ homes into order before getting them under the hammer. It’s basically a soft tutorial that eases you into gameplay, and it works well, letting you get a feel for the controls and the way the game works instead of overwhelming you with everything.
House Flipper was one of the first games I played when I got my Steam Deck, and it was easy enough to play on the go in small increments without getting too invested. Given the first game’s pretty expansive home renovation scope, I was curious to see what upgrades and additions would be added to the sequel. There’s a more interesting and expansive frame story in place this time, and you also get some interaction with your associate and your clients in the form of voiced phone calls, albeit with some rather strange-sounding vocal performances. The best upgrade for the sequel is the improved graphics, which look so much better than the original, but with five years of technology updates, that’s to be expected.
My favorite thing about House Flipper 2 is that it never forgets it’s a game and that it’s supposed to be fun. I’ve found some sims can get too caught up in realism and forget to be enjoyable, but House Flipper 2 happily avoids those pitfalls. You can always choose how much of a job you want to complete, items don’t have to be exactly placed perfectly unless you want them to be, and if you forget to tick off one or two boxes on the To Do checklist, that’s okay!
In terms of gameplay, House Flipper 2 has a solid system setup. You check your email, pick which job you’d like to take, start the job, and then go through and check off the To Do lists for each room of the house or building that you’re working on. You can do the checklists in any order and redesign the house or room in whatever way you feel comfortable. It’s a setup that gives a lot of freedom to the player to do things their own way.
You can also choose to redo the house your parents left you in your downtime, or after a certain point, you can buy and flip houses to sell outside of your email missions. Again, you’re given the freedom to play the game your way, though you do need to get through several tutorial email missions to unlock various tools and learn how the game works unless you’d rather skip straight to Sandbox mode.
There’s also a handy dandy skill tree system that makes your life easier as you level up your skills in things like painting and trash collecting. From painting larger areas, collecting more trash, and selling homes for more money, each level up makes your life way easier going forward. Unfortunately, it’s not a very in-depth skill tree and certain low-level skills could certainly benefit from an expansion. It’s almost too easy to level up cleaning and garbage collecting skills, for instance.
For fans of the original House Flipper, they’ll be delighted with the sequel. It delivers more of what was loved about the first game while expanding on that which makes it good. If you’re not a fan of the first game, House Flipper 2 provides a good and more polished entry point into the series, and it’s worth checking out even if you’re not a fan of house flipper shows (or flat-out hate them, like myself). My only question left is – when’s the DLC coming?
House Flipper 2 was reviewed on PC with a copy provided by the publisher over the course of 8 hours of gameplay – all screenshots were taken during the process of review.
