just so you dont have to learn it how i had to, note this down: you cannot kill the dogs

i beat up a police officer, stole his red key, molded it and made my own copy, ran up to the top floor, hijacked a helicopter, escaped prison, then came home and played the escapists 2

practice for when I commit epic tax evasion

Okay, so what exactly is the point of co-op in this game? Me and my friend just spent 4 hours planning and gathering stuff, only to find out - DURING THE ESCAPE - that you can't hold doors open for each others.
And here is my question: Why the hell not?

Why do we need two identical keys to go through the same door together? That makes ZERO SENSE.

This is coming from someone who did not play the first Escapists game.


I purchased the game with pretty low expectations. The youtubers displayed a horribly bugged version many weeks before release, and I was not naive enough to think they would actually fix it in time.

I was right, but the game turned out to have more problems than expected. Instead of expanding THE SANDBOX with more cool stuff to do and cool ways to escape, the devs seem to have focused too much on scripted events.

To summarize what I mean: There are only a few SANDBOX-ways of escaping, called "Perimeter Breakouts". The rest of the escape types are SCRIPTED EVENTS. It means you stand on certain spots while holding certain items in inventory and press "E" and you autowin. This lowers replayability significantly.

• There are no workers who periodically take out trashbags or laundry you could hide in to later get picked up by trucks. Instead there is a scripted event on ONE spot in ONE of the prisons.
• There is no way to hide in boxes being randomly shipped in, around and out of the prisons carrying simulated supplies. Instead just ONE scripted event in ONE of the prisons.
• No way to bribe guards. Maxing their opinion of you does nothing.
• No way to get released for good behavioral achievements.
• No way to hack the security systems to remotely open doors.


Speaking of rooms. On your map you see many different rooms. There are control rooms, maintenance, wardens office and some others. "So exciting! I wonder you can do with those rooms!" I thought. Sadly, the answer is often "nothing". You can't do anything cool in most of those rooms. They contain cool doodads that you usually cannot interact with. Some contain lootable props.

• You cannot build teams or make friends in the social room.
• You cannot hide in the boxes in the maintanence room.
• You cannot shut down surveillance from the control room.
• The desks in the guard rooms seem to have the exact same loot as in the prisoner cells.
• You cannot do anything or loot anything in the wardens office, or even interact with the warden in any way.

But sadly, the disappointments don't stop here.

You literally can't interact with most NPC's other than guards and prisoners. You can't talk to them. You can't punch them. You can't bribe them. You can't do anything with them. They are decorations. Even the warden is just a decoration walking around.

And then there is the crafting. At first sight you seem to have many different crafting recipes and abilities to make lots of cool stuff. To be fair, yes there are some fun SANDBOX stuff in there, but many of the recipes are pretty much useless except for certain jobs and the above mentioned scripted events. Like, why craft a "cup of tea" when you can't even consume it? Give it to a guard or prisoner to get an arbitrary achievement and raise their opinion of you by 10ish points? You could just give them some random raw materials instead for a better result.


To summarize my opinion of this game:

Positives:

+ Has hardware mouse / raw input.

+ Pretty fun sandbox and good for quite a few hours.

+ Working towards and getting that escape can be exciting and satisfying.

+ Nice graphic style.

+ Fast updates have fixed many of the technical issues by day 3.


Negatives:

- DAY 1 DLC - This is commonly frowned upon for many reasons. Look it up.

- Season Pass - An insult to your playerbase. The Steam store information states "The Escapists 2 Season Pass will feature 3 brand new prisons to be released over the coming months". This means TEAM 17 is less likely to allow workshop maps for some time, in order to monopolize all content and MILK the playerbase as much as possible. It also means you have not paid for the full game (which can be considered fine, but still a negative). But it further implies the devs will spend development time during the coming months on releasing MAPS instead of improving the actual sandbox, which would improve ALL maps simultaneously and increase DEPTH.

- Game somewhat lacks depth and tries to hide this by adding a bunch of scripted events.

- Game was released in an unfinished and heavily bugged state. It would need alot more development time to feel solid.

- Game has some subjectively bad design decisions, such as the stat system, or the non-flexible (non-sandboxy) job-system.

- The "transport prisons" are basically short mini-missions. They somewhat inflate the advertised number of prisons. They can also only be won through scripted events.

- The game has issues with stuttering.

- Youtuber names can't be turned off. <-- Changed in update 7.

- Controls can't be rebinded to mouse thumb buttons.

- Many (all?) the scripted events are narrowly and unflexibly programmed. Some can only be completed in singleplayer, while others only can be completed in multiplayer. Basically you are locked out of content and achievements by only playing singleplayer. I made it to the front of the train through effort by knocking out all 3 guards, only to be met with a message saying something like "You can not operate this train alone".

- Quests are also unflexibly programmed. If you get a quest to "get me some duct tape", you can not complete it by getting him some duct tape. Instead you must get the special QUEST ITEM duct tape.

Overall, I feel the TEAM 17 devs have initially done a bad job on this one. But the game still has alot of potential, and I will keep trying it out as it gets updated.



Edits: Less aggressive tone. Rephrased several things. Removed possible factual errors. Updated or removed text due to game changes from client updates.

My dad's been playing this game in real life for 20 years

---{Gameplay}---
🔳Try not to get addicted
☑️Very good
🔳Good
🔳Nothing special
🔳Ehh
🔳Bad
🔳Just dont

---{Graphics}---
🔳Masterpiece
🔳Beautiful
☑️Good
🔳Decent
🔳Will do
🔳Bad
🔳Awful
🔳Paint.exe

---{Audio}---
🔳Eargasm
🔳Very good
☑️Good
🔳Decent
🔳Not too bad
🔳Bad
🔳Earrape

---{Audience}---
🔳Kids
🔳Teens
🔳Adults
☑️Everyone

---{PC Requirements}---
🔳Check if you can run paint
🔳Potato
☑️Decent
🔳Fast
🔳Rich boi
🔳Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{Story}---
🔳Doesn't have
🔳Something isnt nothing I guess
🔳Not greatly told
🔳Average
☑️Good
🔳Lovely
🔳Will make you cry or smile alot

---{Playstyle}---
🔳Almost never the same in any two people
☑️varies a little bit from person to person
🔳Weapon AND character classes
🔳Weapon OR character classes
🔳Creative AND Survival
🔳Creative OR Survival
🔳Melee AND Ranged
🔳Melee OR Ranged

---{Difficulity}---
🔳Just press a bunch of buttons
🔳Easy
🔳Significant brain usage
☑️Easy to learn / Hard to master
🔳Not so easy
🔳Difficult
🔳Dark Souls

---{Grind}---
🔳Nothing
☑️Only if you care about leaderboards/ranks
🔳Isnt necessary to progress
🔳A bit grindy sometimes
🔳Average grind level
🔳A bit grindy
🔳Insanity

---{Game Time}---
🔳Long enough for a cup of tea
🔳Short
🔳Average
🔳Long
☑️Depends on you
🔳Endless

---{Price}---
☑️Just buy it
🔳Worth the price
🔳Wait for sale
🔳Maybe if you have some spare money left
🔳Not recommended
🔳Dont throw money into a rubbish bin

---{Micro-Transactions}---
🔳EA
🔳Mobile Game(Necessary if you don’t want to wait 15 weeks to construct a toaster)
🔳”Premium” Currency AND Normal Currency
🔳”Premium” Currency OR Normal Currency
🔳Quick way to advance
🔳Fortnite(Skins/Emotes/Etc)
🔳Only to show off big time
☑️Level DLC
🔳None

---{Bugs/Glitches}---
🔳Never had any
☑️Minor bugs/glitches
🔳Few bugs/glitches
🔳Can get annoying
🔳Ruining the game
🔳The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs/glitches

Friend buys you this game and says you'll play it together.

Never played it together.

You continue to play it for so long by yourself that it gets stale.

What am I doing with myself, I'm stuck in my own prison. I need to escape.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☑ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

Found my dad