Under Par Golf Architect is a surprisingly deep golf sim for Switch 2

Under Par Golf Architect is a new golf course building and management sim from Italian developer Broken Arms Games. If you’ve played anything in the Two Point series — such as Two Point Hospital or Two Point Campus — you’ll get the vibe immediately. It’s that kind of game, but for golf.

Now, full disclosure: I’m not a golfer and I don’t particularly care for the sport. But you don’t need to be, as this is less about playing golf (although you can actually try your creations) and more about designing the courses, running the business and, presumably, turning a profit. It’s RollerCoaster Tycoon but with fairways.

There’s terraforming, hole design, a scoring system for how well-balanced your overall course is and much more. You’ll even be hiring staff, placing facilities, and ensuring your members are all happy. There’s actually a lot going on here, and it’s more ambitious than it might first appear — I was pleasantly surprised at just how many systems are at play here and how in depth they seem.

Now yes, the visual style is a bit on the basic side, and doesn’t really do the game any favours — but, there’s a bonus point for the hilariously straightforward characters walking around your course in an entertainingly lanky fashion. It got a smile out of me.

I was impressed to see this has Joy-Con mouse support — for a game like this it’s basically essential, and not all Switch 2 games that you’d expect to have it do — so, I’m grateful for it here, and it works well enough. However, when in mouse mode the touch targets are a tad small — but it’s far more intuitive than trying to manage everything on a stick. On that point, the UI isn’t always the clearest either, and the game does throw quite a few systems at you fairly quickly.

All that said, there’s enough here to pique the curiosity of any sim fan, thanks to a lengthy campaign with plenty to do. So, if tycoon-style management sims are your thing and you’ve been waiting for one with a golf twist, this is probably worth a look. It’s got enough going on to keep you busy.

Under Par Golf Architect is available now on the Nintendo Switch 2 for roughly $20.