The Escapists 2

Lore & Background

The Escapists 2 places the player in control of an inmate viewed from a top-down perspective. The inmate must follow daily prison routines while completing quests for fellow inmates and seeking escape opportunities. Missing routines raises the prison's security level, leading to more guards, dogs that sniff out contraband, and at the highest level a total lockdown. Lockdowns can also be triggered by damaging the prison or misplacing guards' keys. A crafting system allows players to create items such as shovels, stun guns, and dummies to confuse guards. If caught, all contraband is lost and the inmate is sent to solitary confinement.

Compared to its predecessor, the game offers a larger variety of prisons, including prisoner transport vehicles and space-based incarceration facilities. More customization options for the player character are available, and the combat system has been expanded to include locking onto targets, blocking, and light and heavy attacks. The game features both local and online cooperative multiplayer for up to four players, with some escapes requiring multiplayer to unlock. Competitive multiplayer pits two to four players against each other, with the fastest escape winning.

Development was undertaken by Mouldy Toof Studios in conjunction with Team17. The team identified multiplayer as the most requested feature from players of the first game. Because the first game's code would have required substantial rewriting to incorporate such features, a new game was created instead. The team aimed to introduce something new, expanding many systems to become more complex and designing multi-storied prisons. The game was announced on October 3, 2016, and released on multiple platforms over the following years. Several downloadable content packs—'Big Top Breakout', 'Dungeons and Duct Tape', and 'Wicked Ward'—each introduced a new prison map.

Reader's Guide

The Escapists 2 received generally positive reviews from critics according to the review aggregator Metacritic. The Russian magazine Igromania praised the game's humor, characters, variety of maps, and the option to play multiplayer, while somewhat criticizing the interface, specifically the dialog boxes. The game's significance lies in its successful implementation of multiplayer—both cooperative and competitive—which was the most requested feature from players of the original The Escapists. By building a new game from the ground up rather than patching the old code, the developers were able to create more complex, multi-storied prisons and expand systems like crafting and combat. The release across multiple platforms, including mobile versions under the title The Escapists 2: Pocket Breakout, broadened its audience. The downloadable content packs extended the game's lifespan by adding new prison environments. Its legacy is as a sequel that responded directly to player feedback while introducing new mechanics and settings, including space-based prisons, that distinguished it from its predecessor.

Did You Know?

• The game was released for iOS and Android on January 31, 2019 as The Escapists 2: Pocket Breakout.
• Multiplayer was the most requested feature from players of the first game, leading to a new game rather than a patch.
• Some escapes in the game require multiplayer to unlock, supporting up to four players.