The Escapists 2 Adds More Prisons but Not Much Else to Do in Them

The Escapists 2 asks a simple question: what if the prison break was the easy part? Mouldy Toof Studios built its 2015 original around one inmate, one cell and one routine to memorize. The 2017 sequel, published by Team17, keeps the routine and adds three more people to the cellblock. That change carries the whole game, for better and for worse.

Trailer, via Team17.

Four Inmates, One Shower Block

The headline addition is drop in/drop out play for up to four players, in both local and online play. It is a first for the series. Cooperative escapes are built around it: some unique escapes require multiplayer to unlock, with up to four players assisting each other on the way out. Competitive multiplayer pits two to four players against each other, and whoever breaks out fastest wins.

That is a real shift in what the game is. The original was a solitary pursuit — learn the schedule, hide the contraband, pick the moment. The Escapists 2 turns the same systems into a coordination problem. Someone has to run the favour, someone has to cover the shakedown, and everyone has to be back in their cell when the count comes.

The Schedule Is the Antagonist

Players assume control of an inmate from a top-down perspective. The inmate follows daily routines inside the prison while completing quests for fellow inmates and hunting for a way out. Miss a routine and the prison’s security level rises.

The escalation is the sharpest thing in the design. At higher security levels, more guards patrol. Dogs sniff out contraband stored by inmates. At the highest level, a total lockdown hits and every inmate must return to his cell. A lockdown can also be triggered by damaging the prison or misplacing guards’ keys — a mistake that costs you the run.

The crafting system feeds off that pressure. Players build shovels, stun guns and dummies to confuse guards, using items found or stolen inside the prison. Get caught and every contraband item in your inventory is gone, and the inmate lands in solitary confinement. There is no partial credit.

Space Prisons and a Bigger Toybox

The Escapists 2 widens the map. Compared with its predecessor, it carries a larger variety of prisons, including prisoner transport vehicles and incarceration facilities set in space. Character customization options are expanded too.

Combat gets an upgrade as well. Players can lock onto targets, block, and throw light and heavy attacks — a deeper system than the original offered. It matters most in the competitive mode, where a fight over a key or a tool decides who walks out first.

What the Routine Costs You

Here is where the game’s ambition and its execution start to pull apart. The Escapists 2 wants two things at once: the slow, patient scouting of a solo prison sim, and the noisy, improvisational chaos of four people trying to escape together. Those two desires do not always sit in the same cell.

The solo loop still works. Crafting, favours, job shifts and escape-route scouting give the player a full day’s work, and the security-level system punishes laziness without ever feeling arbitrary. The lockdown mechanic is the best kind of threat: it is your fault, and you knew better.

Multiplayer is where the seams show. Four players moving through a schedule designed for one means the routine becomes a negotiation, and negotiation is slower than obedience. When it clicks — one inmate running a distraction while another digs — The Escapists 2 hits a note the original never could. When it does not, you are four people waiting on a shower block.

The Escapists 2 by the Numbers

• Release: August 2017 (Linux, macOS, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One)
• Nintendo Switch: 2018. iOS and Android: 2019.
• Developer: Mouldy Toof Studios. Publisher: Team17.
• Platforms reviewed here: PlayStation 4, Linux, PC, Mac.
• Modes: single player, multiplayer, co-operative.
• Multiplayer cap: four players, local and online.
• Published critical score: 7.5/10 (IGDB critic aggregate, 9 outlets).

Ranking What Actually Matters

If you are deciding whether to spend your evening in this prison, the priorities sort themselves cleanly.

1. The security-level system. It is the spine of the game and the reason a missed routine stings.
2. Cooperative escapes. The unique multiplayer-only escapes justify the four-player push.
3. The crafting tree. Shovels, stun guns and dummies do the heavy lifting.
4. Prison variety. Transport vehicles and space facilities break up the cellblock repetition.
5. Competitive multiplayer. Fastest escape wins, which is fun but thin.
6. Character customization. Welcome, but cosmetic.

A Sequel That Widens Without Deepening

The Escapists 2 is a better toybox than The Escapists. It is not always a better game. The added prisons, the expanded combat and the four-player escapes all broaden the sandbox, but the core tension — one inmate against one schedule — was already the strongest idea Mouldy Toof had, and the sequel does not sharpen it so much as crowd it.

That crowding is the honest trade. Drop in/drop out play means a friend can join mid-run, which is genuinely useful, and the cooperative-only escapes give the mode a reason to exist beyond novelty. But the competitive mode is the weakest limb: two to four players racing to break out first is a fine party trick and little more, because the game’s systems reward patience, not speed.

The Escapists 2 is at its best when the schedule is winning. When the dogs are out, the guards are thick on the ground and the lockdown siren is a real possibility, the game remembers what it is: a tense, methodical escape sim with a clock running. When it drifts toward being a multiplayer hangout, it gets looser and less interesting.

That is not a fatal flaw. It is a sequel doing the safe thing — adding players, adding prisons, adding a space station — instead of the hard thing, which would have been to make the solo escape mean more. The Escapists 2 is worth your time, and it is worth playing with a friend, but the cell you remember is the one you broke out of alone.

co-op games · game review · Mouldy Toof Studios · prison sim · Team17 · The Escapists 2