TOEM 2 review: The adventure can pause while you photograph something silly

The big picture

TOEM 2 understands the person who goes for a walk and returns with forty photographs of things nobody asked to see. A peculiar corner, an interesting character, an animal behaving like an animal: all perfectly valid reasons to stop. Here, that habit is useful. Photography helps solve problems and move the journey along, so you can finally defend your inability to walk directly to a destination as important adventuring technique.

Something We Made's sequel takes place several years after the original story, following a curious photographer into another journey. It launched in full on September 29, 2026, for Windows, macOS, Linux, PS5, Switch and Switch 2. The earlier demo is separate, and this is a new sequel rather than a repackaging of 2021's TOEM. Familiarity helps you recognise the spirit of the trip, but newcomers are welcome to bring a camera too.

Now you can climb to the better angle

Jumping and climbing give the sequel new ways to position its protagonist. The developer's game page also describes an expanded journey and friendships that can influence the story and ending. These additions broaden what a visitor can do without requiring the photography premise to be replaced by something louder.

Movement is particularly relevant in a game about observation. Where you stand affects what you can see, so reaching a viewpoint can become part of discovering the photograph. A climb has a reason beyond reaching another patch of ground: it may let you look at a familiar place differently. That is an appropriate upgrade for someone whose main tool is a camera rather than an enormous sword.

Extra mobility does not automatically turn TOEM into a demanding platformer, nor does a bigger journey guarantee better puzzles. The attraction remains exploration and attention. If you buy it primarily because jumping sounds like the first step towards a rigorous acrobatic challenge, you may have packed for a different holiday.

Towns with hobbies are easier to like

Deltburg includes an aquarium and a comedy show. Taletorp offers carpentry, potion-making and tavern LARP activities. These regional details give the world something more specific than scenery to stand in front of. A town becomes memorable because people there do things, including apparently deciding that an ordinary tavern visit would benefit from pretending to be somebody else.

That sort of local diversion suits a photography adventure. Helping a character can reveal their interest or problem, which in turn gives the place personality. You participate in small pieces of everyday life rather than simply arriving, recording a landmark and leaving before anybody can ask you a favour.

The comedy show also suggests an admirably manageable scale of drama. Not every settlement needs an ancient catastrophe concealed beneath its bakery. Sometimes a place can be worth visiting because it contains people with peculiar hobbies. The camera gives those small discoveries somewhere to go, while the quests give you a reason to look beyond the most obvious view.

Nobody is timing your sightseeing

TOEM 2 is designed without time limits or demanding full-completion requirements. That is a meaningful preference, especially for players who would rather think about a puzzle than prove they can think quickly. You can pause, reconsider an image or follow a minor curiosity without a clock making disapproving noises at your leisure choices.

Gentleness will not suit everyone. Someone who needs difficult execution or constant resistance may find the pace too mild. Low pressure provides room for interesting observations; it cannot force those observations to interest every player. The question is whether noticing and helping are satisfying activities for you in their own right.

There is one practical complication for Nintendo players: Switch and Switch 2 save data are not compatible. Choose an edition without assuming you can move the same journey freely between them. The developer has also documented launch-period Linux and macOS fixes, so those specific old problems should not automatically be treated as current ones, and no platform-wide performance equivalence should be assumed.

TOEM 2 gives curious wandering useful direction without demanding that the wanderer hurry up. New movement and camera functions broaden the trip, but the basic pleasure remains small and clear: see something, wonder about it, get involved. If that sounds like your sort of adventure, leave room in the itinerary for a lot of entirely defensible distractions.