The Escapists 2 (Switch) Review

It’s been an interesting time for games, where it feels like the way to teach players how to play is trial and error over blunt tutorials. Sometimes this works, with failure as part of the learning process, but usually more for faster paced action games. The Escapists 2 definitely does have this trial and error style of learning as part of the core experience, but when it’s a slower, time management based game, it can be just as tedious as much as it builds anticipation.

Before I elaborate too much, let’s go through the basics- The Escapists 2 is a game all about breaking out of prison. It’s a sandbox experience, so how you break out is up to you. There’s multiple activities to take part in — you can work jobs, or help fellow prisoners out with favours, either way will earn you cash to buy the tools you need. You can literally break out of prison, by breaking down a wall, or sneak out with a disguise. It’s interesting how the game leaves it up to you.

But beyond a short, linear tutorial, the game doesn’t really give you an in-depth description of your options. Part of me appreciated this — it’s kind of like a real prison break, it’s not like you’re going to be told how to do it! And learning all the things on my own did give me a sense of satisfaction once I figured it out.

But ultimately, the Escapists 2 is about deliberation and time management. Depending on your plan, it could take a while for all the pieces to fall into place. So that feeling of having your plan fail after spending a lot of time on it can be a bit frustrating, even if you do gain experience on how to play the game from it.

Each day plays out how a prison might in real life. There’s a daily routine, including meals, job time, roll call and free time. You technically can deviate from these times, but doing so will arouse suspicion. I once got mugged by guards after missing a few too many things, losing a lot of contraband in the process, so it’s generally a good idea to play by the rules.

There are a ton of items, each with different uses as well, which can also be used in a crafting system to make more useful tools, items and weapons. I actually had a lot of fun going through a bunch of prisoners’ desks finding what I needed, both for favours and crafting items I needed. Thankfully, you can be a bit more legit by buying this illegal contraband from prisoners, as long as they like you enough.

Combat is also a part of the game, not just for you, but also for the random fights that occur between other prisoners, or even cruel guards here and there. I personally only used it a few times, as I prefer to use brains over brawn in this sort of game, but it worked well enough that I feel it can be a solid part of your strategy.

As a game, Escapists 2 is solid, and I’d recommend it — with the reminder that it can be a game of patience and trial and error. But as a port? Strangely, there are a lot of long loading times. Considering the simple art style, I was surprised that not only the initial load was long, but every time you load into a game. I also tried loading the eShop while the game was running, and the Switch had considerable trouble loading it up; the last time I had this much trouble was when I was running Doom. Hopefully performance can be improved with patches and post-release support!

The idea that stuck with me while playing, is that The Escapists 2 is a puzzle game, where there’s no real right or wrong answer. You’re practically thrown in the deep end, into a jigsaw puzzle with very few edge pieces to work backwards from, but plenty of pieces from the middle. How you put them together and come up with the solution is up to you.