Living the inmate routine
The Escapists 2 drops you back into prison life as an inmate with one goal: get out. You spend your days following the rules — roll call, prison jobs, strict routines — while quietly working on your escape in the gaps between them. The prisons are big and multi-storey, with multiple floors, roofs, vents and underground tunnels to learn and exploit. There are 11 prisons in total, and they take you from the frosty Fort Tundra to a train hurtling through the desert and even to the final frontier. As the prisons get tougher, the plans have to get more creative.
Crafting is the core of it. You combine everyday objects into weapons and tools: soap and socks become something useful, forks stolen from the cafeteria chip away at a tunnel in your room, and magazines plus duct tape become a poster to hide the evidence. Stealing, brawling and general rule-breaking all feed into the same loop — you need resources, and you need to not get caught using them.
Playing with your crew
Escape Team mode lets you team up with up to 3 friends, so a group of four can build one escape plan together, either online or gathered round a couch. Working together lets you pull off more elaborate and daring plans than you could alone. Drop-in/drop-out applies, so people can join as they arrive, and the game supports both online and splitscreen multiplayer.
If your group would rather compete, versus mode is a race to break out faster than everyone else. When that settles nothing, you can settle it in the courtyard with a prison punch up. The combat system is built around blocking, chaining attacks together and strafing around a locked-on target, so a fight is more than mashing buttons — visiting the gym to build up your muscles helps too.
Before you start
Character creation matters more than it looks: there are over 300 customisations to make your prisoner yours, and you'll be looking at them for a whole escape attempt. Expect difficulty — this is a game about planning, improvising and failing before you succeed.
The Prison Map Editor lets you build your own prison from rooms, fences and guard dogs, saved under Custom Prisons on the main menu. Custom maps can be shared through Steam Workshop, downloaded from other people's creations, and played solo or in both local and online multiplayer. Beyond the base prisons, free updates have added festive maps like Santa's Shakedown and Snow Way Out, each with new jobs and craftables to work with.