The Escapists Review – Free Download on Steam

The Escapists challenges you: escape from the most strictly guarded prisons in the world. Each new prison complicates the task – the rules become stricter, the security is strengthened, the risk of being caught increases. Before you start the game, you have to create your character: choose a name, appearance and prepare for life behind bars. A day in prison is scheduled down to the minute: morning formation, breakfast, free time, work, lunch, gym, dinner and evening roll call. When falling asleep, the character saves their progress, which means that if something goes wrong, you can always return to the checkpoint and try again.

Film and literature have long mastered the prison theme, filling it with drama, suffering and the unchanging dream of freedom. We have seen heroic escapes in Papillon, The Shawshank Redemption and The Count of Monte Cristo. Sometimes the escape turns into a real performance, as in I Love You, Phillip Morris or the cult series Prison Break. But in the world of video games, there have not been many projects on this topic – perhaps only The Chronicles of Riddick and an episode in Metal Gear Solid come to mind. Therefore, it is especially surprising that a small studio Mouldy Toof Studios, in collaboration with Team17, not only took on the creation of a game about escaping from prison, but also gave players complete freedom of action in this difficult task.

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The Escapists Review

Wait, don’t rush to turn away! Prison stories are not only gray walls and dull routine. They have everything: friendship and betrayal, despair and hope. It’s not for nothing that escape movies are so popular – just look at the IMDB and Kinopoisk ratings. But in this game, you won’t find a dramatic plot, but pure mechanics: there’s a wall, on one side of which you are, and on the other – freedom. And the whole point of the game is to end up on the right side.

But if you put aside dreams of a grand escape and look at the life of a prisoner through the eyes of a cold-blooded strategist, it turns out that the key to survival (and later – to escape) lies not only in hacksaws and master keys. Something else is more important here – people. Who to befriend, who to betray, who to help, what to risk… To inform or to cover? Such dilemmas were encountered even in simple text quests like “Space Rangers”. But the local prisoners do not bother with such subtleties – the whole game is built on the ability to craft. Forget about free exploration of the world, as in Terraria or Starbound – here you are driven into tight walls and with enviable consistency take away all the most valuable.

But prison life is not only routine, but also constant checks. The guards are always on the alert: in the mornings and evenings, they count the prisoners, and they look into the cells with surprise searches. Anything that can compromise you – contraband, homemade tools or weapons – will have to be cleverly hidden: with cellmates, in secluded corners or, if you really need it, flushed down the toilet.

To prepare the perfect escape, you will have to earn money, respect and skills. By working, you can win the favor of the guards and get money, for which you can buy useful things from other prisoners – even a guard uniform or homemade weapons. Training on a treadmill increases speed, strength exercises increase health, and reading books or watching cats on the Internet (!) pumps up your intellect, opening access to the creation of complex objects. The smarter, faster and stronger you become, the better your chances of pulling off the perfect escape and leaving the prison walls behind.

Crafting that is annoying: where to get the thing you need if you simply don’t have it?

There are six different prisons in front of us, each with its own nuances, but the escape scheme from them is almost identical. The first thing you need to do is organize a hiding place for useful things. The guards constantly conduct searches, confiscating everything that can be useful in any way – from plasticine to nunchucks (yes, even that is possible here). Where to hide the equipment is a personal matter: you can dig a niche in the floor, hollow out a wall or disguise ventilation. The main thing is not to get caught and not to miss roll call, otherwise there will be such a fuss that you can forget about escaping. If you don’t have normal tools at hand, you will have to improvise – plastic forks and spoons will help. However, such a “grind” literally stretches out for hours. Next – reconnaissance. The more complex the prison, the longer the list of preparatory tasks: get a weapon, knock out a guard, copy the key, wait until night, crawl out through an underground passage, run across the yard… Everything seems logical, but in reality the process of collecting information turns into a meaningless marathon of trial and error.

Firstly, getting inventory is a bore. There are only two options: buy from cellmates or steal from someone else’s desk. But the assortment of items is random, so you may not get the battery or wooden stick you need, even if you crawl around the entire prison. Will they deliver it tomorrow? Maybe. Maybe not. You can’t speed up time, so you have to endlessly circle around the cells, hoping for a successful product update. It’s the same story with crafting recipes. There are few of them, they are expensive, and the logic of combinations is sometimes simply absent. It’s easier to immediately go to the wiki. Secondly, you find out about the presence of obstacles at the most inopportune moment – when it’s too late to change anything. Let’s say everything is going according to plan, but then suddenly – barbed wire. And of course, there are no wire cutters. There is no point in going back for them – no one wants to collect resources again. The only way out is a reboot.

And here the real “Groundhog Day” begins. Saving occurs in the morning, so if you screw up at night, you have to replay the whole day. Made the nippers? Yeah, and there’s electricity behind the fence. Turned off the current? Great, but then there are mines. Did you go around the mines? Hello, patrol jeep. Every time it’s the same: rollback, try, new unexpected obstacle. When you finally work out the perfect route, the game turns into a boring routine. And it all started so intriguingly.

You Can Run, But Not Live: The Strange Laws of The Escapists

Most of the time in The Escapists is spent in a dull wait with nothing to dilute it with. The prisoners around you are not even people, but shapeless mannequins: without faces, without stories, without character. Sometimes it seems that the prison is inhabited by clones – the same heads appear five times in a row. To somehow hide their lifelessness, these blockheads talk endless nonsense.

“The concert for prisoners is cancelled,” they announce with enviable regularity, although no concert was planned. “The prison warden’s hat was flushed down the toilet!” the prisoners tell excitedly, but the warden himself is an immobile figure from whom nothing can be taken away. “I heard Mike works for the FBI!” Mike himself proudly announces.

It seems that realism and an attentive approach to detail could have saved the game, but no. The Escapists is not about that. It is full of game conventions, and if you are the main character, then everything works according to special rules for you. You are the only one who is going to run, events develop only thanks to your actions, and the rest? They seem to exist in a parallel reality. Fights break out strictly on schedule, solitary confinement cells are intended exclusively for the player, and no one even searches wounded NPCs – unlike you. And what difference does it make, in the end, where you lie unconscious? You can’t die or really suffer here anyway.

If in Prison Architect life boils according to its own strict laws, then in The Escapists everything is based on a strange, sometimes even absurd logic. Merchants sell items they don’t have, the characters’ parameters change every day: yesterday’s smart guy suddenly becomes a complete fool, but at the same time unexpectedly gets rich. We buy, they sell — no barter for you. And there are also metal detectors with superpowers: they “sniff” not only metal, but also wood, plastic, and even a sharpened comb. True, these miracle machines only work for the main character — the rest can carry at least an arsenal in their pockets.

Yes, the scenery changes: here is a former concentration camp, here is a jungle, here is a strange prison, where the guards for some reason patrol only the perimeter, as if they are afraid to go inside… But the rules of the game are unchanged. You will be able to escape not thanks to the atmosphere, but thanks to the holes in the logic. And that’s what The Escapists is all about.

The Escapists System Requirements

The Escapists system requirements contain the PC specifications needed for a stable and smooth launch of the game. Compliance with these parameters guarantees a comfortable gaming process with a high frame rate and fast loading.

How to Play The Escapists for Free on VpeSports

Want to dive into the world of escapes and prison intrigue in The Escapists without spending a dime? You’ve come to the right place! On the platform, you’ll find a great solution for free access to the game. With the Shared Gaming Accounts service, you can use ready-made accounts with the game installed and immediately start developing a brilliant escape plan!

To get started, visit the VpeSports website and create an account. Once logged in, go to the Shared Steam section. Here you will find a carefully selected list of accounts with The Escapists pre-installed. Select the desired account, go to its overview page and click on the download button. Follow the instructions to access the game and begin your prison epic! We value your feedback, so feel free to share your opinion about our service! Please note that all comments are moderated, and if yours does not appear immediately, it may require minor changes to comply with the rules. Once approved, our administrator will send you account details to your registered email.

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If you have any questions or difficulties along the way, don’t worry! A detailed guide is available on our website: How to play for free – step-by-step instructions. Get ready, develop strategies and break free in the exciting world of The Escapists!