Using the gear you acquire you can craft the items needed for you to escape – with weapons, uniforms and keys available to create with the required resources and crafting skill. This isn’t the only way for you to obtain contraband, with the ability to loot your fellow inmates’ desks also available.

Your fellow inmates will also seek your help, completing their tasks provides you with useful items or currency with which you can purchase items from other inmates. Life in the prison is all about routine, and you will have to plan your escape whilst adhering to these tight schedules – with eating, exercise, roll call and work all chipping away at your valuable plotting time. The prisons that make up the game’s levels come in varying shapes, sizes and themes – ranging from Wild West and Space to a Prisoner of War camp – but they all follow a similar structure. However, it soon becomes apparent that “the basics” are certainly not enough. Mouldy Toof’s latest eases you into the escaping lark by the means of a tutorial, where a fellow named Robinson tells you the story of how he escaped prison – with you taking control of him during this flashback to learn the basics of The Escapists 2.

Having never got round to playing the first game, when the sequel was announced to be released on the Switch I thought it was as good a time as any to give the prison-break game a go. Like real prisons, there are a few cons associated with this game!īeing a big fan of films like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, The Escapists has been a game that has always intrigued me.

The escapists exercise controls