Prison Architect

 PlayStation 4
User Score
6.8

Mixed or average reviews- based on 45 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 45
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 45
  3. Negative: 9 out of 45
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  1. harisongross
    Jul 8, 2016
    8
    A great simulator. The consoles are in desperate need of simulation games and this one delivered. I hadn't heard of it before but it seems to have spawned from an early underground PC game "Prison Tycoon" which got derailed by awful sequels. I was a huge fan of RCT and The Sims though. My knocks on the game come from the idea (in general, a prison? really?) and a lack of polish. Some ofA great simulator. The consoles are in desperate need of simulation games and this one delivered. I hadn't heard of it before but it seems to have spawned from an early underground PC game "Prison Tycoon" which got derailed by awful sequels. I was a huge fan of RCT and The Sims though. My knocks on the game come from the idea (in general, a prison? really?) and a lack of polish. Some of the English in the game is broken and many convicts are template-d and don't have quite enough uniqueness. The graphics are very cartoon-y, which works OK for a simulator. All in all, THE GAME IS A STEAL AT ITS $30 price point.… Expand
  2. heCk_
    Jul 3, 2016
    9
    I bought this game for PC months ago and logged solid amount of time toward it. It is fresh and full of challenges. The mix of sandbox and management aspects give it life beyond the initial building. As you manage you generate money and can continue to build. I absolutely love this game and if you look at the patch notes and even watch some of the developers streams on YouTube, all theI bought this game for PC months ago and logged solid amount of time toward it. It is fresh and full of challenges. The mix of sandbox and management aspects give it life beyond the initial building. As you manage you generate money and can continue to build. I absolutely love this game and if you look at the patch notes and even watch some of the developers streams on YouTube, all the updates and patches they apply to this game are entirely beneficial. I haven't seen them waste their time yet. A lot of effort clearly went into the eas of managing the controls for the ps4 version which is awesome. You can make it easy by giving yourself a lot of money and only taking in minimum security prisoners and work your way up to max security and low starting money, as well as always taking on new grants throughout a single play through. This game is honestly a must buy. It's one you can keep on your ps4 and always come back and play because it's not like any other game. And it's half the price of a normal game. 9.0 easy. They devs will constantly be making additions to this game and at least fixing anything need be quickly.

    Pro:

    Sandbox building
    Variety of prisoners and management
    Grants to keep the management aspect alive for much longer
    Upgrade tree

    Cons / what could be added:

    I think they can't go wrong with adding additional flooring types, there's definitely enough, but over time maybe a flooring pack for 2 or 5$.

    As well as other cosmetic packs for various structures.

    9 / 10. Easy.

    Great job devs, it's nice to see developers who put so much fine care into their game. I'm so glad to see this game has made it onto the ps4 and the effort you guys put into the interface is beyond words. There's a lot going on at first, but they did it right.

    1 caveat I would add, is if the devs could add a option for switching which analog moves the cursor and which moves the screen. Right now it's default at left analog is the cursor and right is the screen but I think most of us are used to the right analog moving a mouse as in 'looking' and left analog being 'moving'.

    Great job.    … Expand
  3. nismo10
    Jul 19, 2017
    10
    Definitivamente fue lo que esperaba, lo compre para PS4 puesto que no me gusta jugar en PC, los controles son demasiado cómodos, para estar en tu sala o acostado jugando y disfrutando un juego que recompensa o castiga por tus acciones y vas viendo un progreso espectacular, cada detalle hace genial y no aburre.
  4. Soullex
    Nov 30, 2022
    7
    Oyunda bir yerden sonra, neredeyse sadece bekleyerek para kazanıyorsun. Bu da çok sıkıcı yapıyor işi.
  5. Bloodnes
    Sep 13, 2020
    5
    Не знаю откуда столько восторженных отзывов, игра, как по мне, посредственна, нет ничего интересного, один раз на вечером для ознакомления и дальнейшего удаления. 5/10
  6. EcstaticPlant
    Feb 11, 2020
    0
    i would have given this game 10/10 when it came out

    but now its 2020 and 3 dlcs later the game at one point was near flawless and fun in 2020 the game is broken. unplayable. you cant build a prison that secure. all your guards will one by one just start standing there swinging their keys endlessly allowing prisoners to kill each other and even just walk out the front door that the    i would have given this game 10/10 when it came out

    but now its 2020 and 3 dlcs later

    the game at one point was near flawless and fun

    in 2020 the game is broken. unplayable. you cant build a prison that secure. all your guards will one by one just start standing there swinging their keys endlessly allowing prisoners to kill each other and even just walk out the front door that the key swinging guard is holding open for all the prisoners

    i tried to make a thread on their reddit with a clip and they removed the thread instead of addressing the issue
    i reposted and got banned

    You have been temporarily banned from participating in r/prisonarchitect. This ban will last for 30 days. You can still view and subscribe to r/prisonarchitect, but you won't be able to post or comment.

    they arent trying to fix the game.

    i paid over $60 for the game and all the dlcs and it is broken and unplayable

    whats the point of a prison builder game if all your guards just glitch out and let the inmates walk out the front door

    trust me you will regret buying this game in 2020    … Expand
  7. iCampoRamil
    Nov 12, 2021
    7
    Me fascinó el concepto, siempre tengo ganas de retomarlo, está muy chulo y disfrutón.
  8. Methias
    Jun 23, 2021
    8
    What can be said about Prison Architect? It's a strike of gold. I wasn't sure what to think of it when I first began to play it, which was a few years ago, roughly not long after it first launched. It was confusing to begin with, nothing was really made simple. It is a game, even to this day, where you just need to get good by experimenting and finding out what works best for what you wantWhat can be said about Prison Architect? It's a strike of gold. I wasn't sure what to think of it when I first began to play it, which was a few years ago, roughly not long after it first launched. It was confusing to begin with, nothing was really made simple. It is a game, even to this day, where you just need to get good by experimenting and finding out what works best for what you want to do. Or watching youtube videos can really help as well as you can pick up on what others have done and come up with your own ideas.

    Once you get into the flow, you can soon find yourself building prisons that can range in worth up to over a million in value. There are many mechanics of the game that just really easy to control, but the one down side is that it's very time consuming. Though, that really depends on the player. Some people like games that can be time consuming.

    The way PA can be time consuming is that it can literally take hours upon hours to get your prison going anywhere decent. And when you build, you can just build at random. Well, you could, but that'll be a recipe for disaster. Like myself, first prison I made didn't even last a week. I had too many prisoners in the building, they got majorly angry, wound up breaking out of their cells, set fire to the place and ran out of holes in the walls.

    Yeah, none of that is a lie. Expect to see this kind of stuff.

    Again though, more features are available. A lot of them new from when I first started. The developers have worked themselves to the bone making the game better and better, including making mod support possible on the PC version and taking advice and highly requested things from the fans of the game and implementing them. They listened to what we wanted and they gave it a lot of the time!

    The mechanics, gameplay and everything in between have all been updated or upgraded in some way over the past couple of years, and it's really improved the game. I won't list every single thing since that would take way too long, but just know that the game has a decent tutorial, better tool options when building (like the clone tool) as well as the story mode and arcade mode.

    The best thing I've seen is the addition of new modes and of course the DLC's which have just added more content to the game, making it even more enjoyable than it already was. While yes, some of the DLC isn't quite worth the asking price, others are. And a lot of the better content has been added in for free. Such as the option to have female prisoners instead of male ones, which brings in the new callenge that some prisoners may very well arrive in the prison with infants. Yes, this is apparently something that happens for real. I didn't learn of it until I played it in PA, but it turns out young mothers who only get a few weeks or months for a sentence in prison can very well have their children inside with them. With this being a thing, you have to construct a special secluded section where it's just for the inmate mothers, their cells have baby cribs, a play area for the babies and their own mini canteen so they can eat while being able to keep an eye on their kids. It's a very surprising, but very interesting mechanic to the game which I have come to love the challenge of because you never know how many inmates will arrive with babies.

    Overall, Prison Architect is a solid gold example of an amazing tycoon game. If you want to get a feel of what it's like, I'd advise going to youtube and checking out some of the past developer diary videos they've got. It gives you a real insight into how the game works. Plus they're just fun videos. But from me, this game is a solid 8.5/10. I would want to give it a full 10, but I feel like there's just a little bit that the game is missing that would make it better. Luckily they're nothing major, but the game is very much worth the asking price. If you can get it on sale, then absolutely. But I would advise buying for full price because it shows the devs the greatest support, and these developers definitely do deserve it.

    If you love tycoon games, micro management games and ones which will show you the fruits of your labour in time, then Prison Architect is one of the must buys for you.

    8/10.    … Expand
  9. xRodge
    Aug 31, 2021
    6
    Prison Architect is, definitely, an interesting game - but it doesn't port, particularly, well to the PS4.

    The game plays well enough, but it misses a huge amount of things from the PC version and can, really, struggle for performance when you try to build larger prisons with higher amounts of inmates. It also (as of August 2021) suffers from a number of bugs, that stop you from being    Prison Architect is, definitely, an interesting game - but it doesn't port, particularly, well to the PS4.

    The game plays well enough, but it misses a huge amount of things from the PC version and can, really, struggle for performance when you try to build larger prisons with higher amounts of inmates. It also (as of August 2021) suffers from a number of bugs, that stop you from being able to complete some of the trophy achievements.

    I did enjoy the game, but too many little niggles for me to consider the PS version to be worth it over PC.    … Expand
  10. Bad-wolf
    May 23, 2022
    9
    Prison architect is an extremly fun game you can do whatever you want and even tough it has some bugs these only occur every 10 hours or so and are gone after a few seconds so they don't really disrupt the gameplay much if you like prisons then you should buy this game and with the right dlc you can even play an pretty good escape mode

Awards & Rankings

63
#63 Best PS4 Game of 2016

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 18
  3. Negative: 0 out of 18
  1. games(TM)
    Sep 29, 2016
    80
    Navigation on the PS4 port might be slightly wonky, but you get used to it. This is a crazily thorough and thoughtful management sim; slick and surprising enough to recommend regardless of format.
    Read full review
  2. Playstation Official Magazine Australia
    Aug 24, 2016
    80
    Underneath the cute exterior lies a tough-as-nails sim exposing the realities of prison life. If you can see past a few offences, lock your door and lose the key. [September 2016, p72]
  3. PSNStores
    Jul 26, 2016
    80
    Whether intentional or not Prison Architect isn’t just a creative outlet to ‘build stuff’, but it’s also made me stop and think about the kinds of things that are needed to run a facility such as this. I suppose that’s why I ensured my inmates had the ability to work and learn during their time in prison so that one day they might have a better shot in the real world. No matter how you run your prison Introversion Software has provided everyone with complete freedom to handle things in any number of ways. More importantly the campaign and a number of other quality-of-life features help to ensure that the game itself is fun and rarely overwhelming.
    Read full review
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