The Escapists 2

Plenty to discover, but tedium sets in quickly, particularly when faced with an abrupt loss of progress

The Escapists 2 is an ingenious, multi-layered clockwork sandbox that offers you a wide range of routes to freedom. Its tough demands and myriad competing systems can lead to frustration, but a winning sense of humour and knock-about fun always brings you back for another jailbreak attempt.

While The Escapists 2 appears to be a bombastic, fun loving adventure through misfortune and triumph, it turns out to be mostly a long and patient game of planning, and luck.

It's a game behind the times, from the way it plays to its awkward design choices, and its weak performance and optimisation on consoles is further cause for frustration. For those willing to put themselves through an unbalanced learning curve there is some enjoyment to be had on the far side, but beyond the fleeting charm of some of the levels, the rest of the experience falls flat.

An interesting idea that quickly dives into repetition and not even repetition I can enjoy. Just watch Prison Break instead of playing this game, you’ll get more out of it.

The Escapists 2 is a worthy sequel to the original game. It features co-op missions, a lot of escape options and interesting puzzles. If you liked the first game, you should try this one.

With a delightful pixel-style that fills the screen with details, it'll be hard to take your eyes off the screen as you make your way through all the different prisons on offer. Most of us might never have the, uh… joy… of breaking out of prison, but The Escapists 2 does a swell job of showing us just how entertaining it can be!

The Escapists 2 is a well-made sandbox game and a fun continuation of the series. While the title gives you a good amount of freedom and tools to spend your time in fun ways, it can also get rather repetitive and overwhelming. The Nintendo Switch version mostly runs well, although the two-player limitation on local play is disappointing.

Although not playing the original, The Escapists 2 is still an enjoyable game, especially if you don't have a lot of time on your hands as it can be played in spurts with how the game and save mechanics work, each day lasting around fifteen minutes.  However, the first prison you play through might take a while to escape if you're not familiar with how the game works.  Though the tutorial level does help out a bit, there were still some things I didn't know about that would have made things a lot easier my first time playing.

The Escapists 2 builds upon its predecessor rather impressively. While the crafting expansion can lead to confusion when trying to plot your escape. Still, it's a fantastic improvement on The Escapists and well worth your time.