The Escapists

A wonderful throwback to ’80s style British gaming, that has much to teach modern titles in terms of player freedom and open world design.

The Escapists is an amusing prison break simulation, which can get frustrating when you have no idea what to craft next. [Sept 2015]

Like its PC or One siblings this is an escape simulator that is not without flaw. And it can be quite frustrating. But it also is very rewarding once you get the hang of it.

If you’re looking for a very different, very open ended, very “freeing” game about jail breaks, The Escapists will appeal to the experimenter and escape artist in you. It’s not going to hold your hand when it comes to enacting a brilliant escape from jail, but if you’re willing to watch, plan and be patient it’s a very rewarding—if demanding—game.

The wide range of items and possibilities make us think of this indie has one of the best indies so far this year. So, if you want some fresh air among all those triple A games, check this game, since it could just amaze you.

The Escapists is an entertaining open-ended puzzler that delivers plenty of challenge for those possessing the patience to overcome it.

The Escapists is a neat throwback to U.K. gaming’s formative years in terms of the gameplay structure and silly humour. It may well be a daunting and often frustrating prospect for those less familiar with that era, but there is scope for many hours of joy for anyone who is.

Sometimes you’re a rat in a cage. Sometimes you’re a lion. But when all your planning, patience, and possibly plain old good luck finally pays off, The Escapists rewards in a rare way. Because in The Escapists, whether you catch a break or catch a beatdown, you’ll know you’ve earned it.

The PlayStation 4 version of The Escapists offers the same game that we already enjoyed on PC, with some little differences.

Escape from six prisons in The Escapists, a challenging game with many items and possibilities and "pixel-art" graphics. But sometimes, it can be frustrating.

It’s just a little too tedious for my taste and it there’s a fine line between unfair and properly unforgiving. Not sure Davis strikes that balance well enough.

Irresistible concept. [July 2015, p.92]

The Escapists is an entertaining and challenging game, but the constant recon gets a bit boring after a while. Additionally, it had a few annoying bugs.

Despite these irritants, The Escapist remains light-hearted fun. It's not an especially meaningful or rich gaming experience (and of course, it doesn't try to be either), and it won't be remembered a decade from now as a classic, but it's honest entertainment that does on some level tap into one of the more enduring subsets of the crime fiction genre.

The concept of The Escapists—make friends, make enemies, make crazy tools, and escape from prison through any applicable deviancy—is easy to fall in love with. Reality, positioning The Escapists as a beautiful machine undermined by the gears assigned to power it, is more cruel.

The Escapists is a game that welcomes and rewards creativity, however the patience required may limit its audience.

The Escapists can be hours of fun for those who enjoy a good challenge in a unique setting, but abundant troubleshooting can make this a hard sell for a mainstream audience.

The Escapists is excellent at what it does, there's no doubt about that, and it's cornered a market that nobody else dares to touch. It's generous with content, it's deep, and, at times, it's extremely satisfying. Still, it can be very tedious, and as such, unless you're actually in prison and have time to kill, there are probably better ways to spend your limited gaming hours.

The Escapists holds the methodical tedium of a prison life simulator with some escape mechanics built in, rather than a thrilling game in which you plan your escape.