I never got a chance to play the first Escapists, so when they announced the 2nd one and that it would have multiplayer I was intrigued. I recently spent some time with the Escapists 2 preview build and came away very impressed. First off you have the normal fare of a single player tutorial prison (Precinct 17) which I felt gave a good basic understanding of the game and how it’s played. Then you can play by yourself or with others to try to cooperatively escape from prison. Oh, and there’s a versus mode where it’s every person for themselves. First to escape wins with a modified ruleset compared to the normal game.
The gameplay felt good throughout my time and both controller and mouse and keyboard responded well. Playing solo and inventing my own ways of escaping was fun, but the real fun came to be had in multiplayer. You see, there’s no voice chat in game. Communication is all through a series of emotes and canned responses that you can choose from. I felt this made the game more intense and for me fun. You could also mark areas on the map for your teammates to find. Dropping off a makeshift weapon in a bush so that prison security didn’t catch you with while later a teammate went to pick it up to use later.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent playing THe Escapists 2 and look forward to playing more. Escapists 2 releases on Steam, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 on August 22. Retailing for $19.99 USD.
