
The Escapists provides players the opportunity of experiencing a light-hearted insight into everyday prison life with the main objective being that of escaping!
Modeled estimate, not a reported figure. How we estimate →
Prices
Each in the currency that store quoted — not converted: the gap between two rows is the publisher's pricing, not an exchange rate.
Availability
We put this game to every storefront we collect. A market that answered not sold has told us something about the game; a market we never asked has not, and the two are never drawn the same.
Discounts
Every price cut of more than 20% we have observed, in each market that quoted one, with this game's chart position on either side of it. These are episodes, not a model: a sale is one event, and one event cannot tell you what the next one will do.
For scale, across Steam · Top Sellers · Brazil over the last 30 days: the 25 chart moves that followed a price cut of more than 20% went a median of 10 places towards #1, and the 2,413 moves with no price cut behind them went 2 away. One store, one chart, one country — it is the only place we have enough observations to say even that.
Prices outside the United States have been collected since 6 August 2026 and chart positions since 19 July 2026, so a cut older than that has no market to compare and a market that joined later has no history yet. Nothing here is converted between currencies.
About
You’ve landed yourself in prison again, and your only chance is to engineer an escape by any means necessary. How you do it is up to you! Why not cause a prison riot? Or dig a tunnel right under the walls of the prison? Or even steal a guard uniform to blend in with your captors?
The Escapists is a unique prison sandbox experience with lots of items to craft and combine in your daring quest for freedom. Life in prison will keep you on your toes with the strict rules that you’ll have to break. The guards are out to stop any escape attempts, so you’ll have to avoid suspicious behaviour by attending roll calls, working a prison job and hiding your stolen craftables.
Escaping is what you do best, and you’ll have to prove your skills in a variety of challenging prisons from across the world.
Become an Escapist now!
10 Fully operational prisons complete with routines to give you a flavour of how it *really* is inside!
10 Separate job opportunities for you to sink your teeth into… If you have the knowledge to earn and hold down these employment paths of course!
185+ Unique Items for you to seek out and perhaps even craft useful items with. (Team17 fully endorse the use of various weapons such as ‘shivs’, ‘nunchucks’ and ‘maces’ – within a fictional setting of course!).
Various Favour types for you to tackle offered up by inmates – You wouldn't want to go upsetting them now, would you?
Highly opinionated and incredibly funny inmates and guards to keep you on your toes as well as providing entertainment!
Multiple escape routes for you to work out and achieve the title of ‘The Escapist’!
Multiple save slots so you can have more than one escape attempt on the go!
Steam Achievements to strive for.
Steam Leaderboards – Once you have escaped see how you fared against other successfully escaped players!
Prison Editor – Create from scratch your very own confinement masterpiece and share it with the community!

Add-ons
Each DLC is estimated with the same model as a game, then summed — a modeled figure, not reported DLC sales.
Sums Steam only; PlayStation, GOG, Epic publish no volume signal, so the true total is higher by an unknown amount.
| Store | Price | Audience | Score | Chart | Est. revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SteamYou are here | $17.99 | 16.2Kreviews | 90% | — | $10.4M |
| $19.99 | 11.3Kratings | 89% | — | not modelled | |
Updates
Build ids and update times come straight from Steam's PICS — the same source SteamDB reads. Patch history grows as we record new builds.
Engagement
Reviews
Themes across 841 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
Reviews
Overall: 7/10 The Escapists 1 and 2 each have their own strengths, making it difficult to declare a definitive "better" game. After playing both of them, I can confidently say that each offers something unique. Neither game really holds your hand past the basics, but once you've played both for a while and start to understand the general gameplay, there's some clear differences. This game has a much grittier feel, with a raw, unforgiving design that forces you to truly think outside the box. Escapes are far less streamlined, meaning you must problem-solve extensively, figuring out creative ways to bypass guards, chip through walls, and sneak past security. In contrast, The Escapists 2 simplifies much of this process with a few scripted escape routes per prison. Most of the time, all you need to do is open the crafting menu, farm desks (or short quests for coins to buy items) for the required map-specific items, and you're set. While this obviously isn't as easy as it sounds for every single prison, AND it makes for a smoother, more accessible experience, it does also strip away some of the creativity and challenge that makes this game right here feel so engaging. That being said, as much charm as I've found in The Escapists 1, I personally feel that The Escapists 2 undeniably offers a higher level of polish, with improved visuals, a better UI, AND multiplayer support, making it the more refined experience overall. If you prefer a more difficult, strategic experience that demands careful planning, this game is absolutely the better choice. However, if you're looking for something more casual, structured, and visually modern, The Escapists 2 is likely the way to go. Ultimately, both are great games for different reasons. It all comes down to personal preference, but if you're new to the series, I'd recommend starting with The Escapists 2; it’s more user-friendly and welcoming, whereas this game can feel quite punishing and outdated by today’s standards.
Media

Related
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Price dynamics, follower growth, revenue and sales trajectories with interactive tooltips
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14 of 15 markets; the rest we haven't asked for this title, not markets where it is unavailable.
14 on sale1 answered “not sold”0 we did not ask
The 1 “not sold” market is read from the Steam price pass of Sep 11: that day the store answered for this game elsewhere and gave no price there. The 14 priced markets are the same rows as the table above — each the latest price we hold, dated here when it is older than that pass. The 0 marked “not asked” were not put to this store at all — either it has no storefront there or we do not collect it yet, and neither is a statement about the game. A refusal is a refusal on one day; a store can list a title again tomorrow.
Genres
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English, French, German, Spanish - Spain, Polish, Russian, Italian
| $3.59−80% |
| 123ratings |
| 68% |
| — |
| not modelled |
| $17.99 | — | — | — | not modelled |
Matched by title — a reused name can pair the wrong games. * is a critic aggregate. Prices and positions are each store's United States storefront; Epic charts worldwide. Audience and Score too, except Steam's, which is worldwide.
Hours played at review time, across 843 reviews with recorded playtime.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
Mi amigo, con el que juego a The Escapists dijo que si publico una reseña sobre el juego y obtiene 100 'Me Gusta' y 20 Premios, me comprará una caja de cerveza y un whisky. Así que dejaré esto aquí...
Escaped 3 prisons, at the fourth one, I started a riot grabbed a guard's keys, escaped, via main entrance, got home, installed the escapists, played it, very much fun
носок + мыло = ломать хлеборезки
почему леха навальный не играл в эту игру(((((((((
Nice try.
Как разговаривать по понятиям? Подходит к вам на улице фраер такой и говорит: "СЛЫШЬ БАБКИ ГОНИ". Вы можете ему ответить:"Слышь камыш" или "Слышь зовут мышь". Если вас спрашивают "Ты кто по масти?", ответь: "Я не конь масти нет" или "Сделай так, чтоб я тебя нашёл". Если вас напрягают вопросом "Ты кем будешь, под кем ходишь?" - отвечайте: "Мы все под Богом ходим" или "Чё-то ты не по сезону шелестишь". Тут вам в ответ может прилететь такой понт: "СЛЫШЬ ТЫ ЗНАЕШЬ КТО Я ТАКОЙ???" - скажите ему: "Крути ногу делай ветер". Если вам говорят "Из какого района?" - отвечайте "ТЫ ЧЁ ШУРШИШЬ ПАКЕТИК". Отвечая подобным образом будьте готовы к двум раскладам: либо он поймёт что не на того нарвался, либо будет драка
we need Chinese
The game is just tedious. Simple improvements that would massively improve the game include but are not limited to: An inter-game recipe book (You could still unlock them o.c, but you wouldn't have to RE-learn after leaving the game for some time), A normal saving system (that doesn't force you through that last day for any sort of break or experimentation), and more to do (the escapes are pretty basic, spare the unique ones. The second game improves on this a bit but not much.) Just watch it on Youtube and don't torture yourself with the achievements.
The concept of prisons as a whole, that dangerous and dysfunctional society of criminals and crooks being managed with a heavy-handed approach by officers of the law in a facility designed to hold them securely with airtight security, invites a level of curiosity rarely seen in other premises as no doubt such TV series as 'Prison Break' and 'Orange is the New Black' highlight to great effect. Naturally I first came across playing the role of the warden via a similar game, Prison Architect, and finding that a good deal interesting although it wasn't until later on that I came across one of Team 17's most unique titles in the form of The Escapists, a game that puts you in the shoes of a common criminal (whether guilty or innocent!) where the goal is the exact opposite of Prison Architect, tasking the player to escape from six increasingly secure prisons that you have been sentenced to live the rest of your days in. To preface this review, I originally played the console edition on the PlayStation 4 back in 2017 and found that it was more than I could chew on as I didn't particularly take a keen interest on some of the game's more extensive mechanics as going for the simple path of beating and tying up guards is a proven method for the first two prisons that are primarily aimed at beginner players. However, having not the patience for anything more involved at the time, I will admit to the shame of having quit prematurely and not picked it up again for quite some years now. Though with having fancied that prison escape experience once more, I aim to fully explore all that The Escapists entails here and what better way of doing that than discussing the multiple systems at play here throughout this simulation experience of living in a prison, the first and most obvious of which is the various strict routines one must abide by whilst slowly working on their stats, the items (both legal and contraband!) and managing relationships with fellow prisoners and guards alike to get by, all whilst surveying the layout of the prison in a cunning attempt to execute that perfect escape that lands you out of the joint as it were! No doubt one of the biggest aspects of The Escapists that I quite enjoyed is, ironically enough, the freedom it gives to players as far as how they wish to approach the main objective at hand. Since one can just go the brutal force way as I spoke of earlier, however other methods can involve concealing walls dug through with posters and holes in hidden areas to dig one's way outside over time. Perhaps using forged keys from putty merged with a real key from a knocked out guard and molten plastic alongside using cutters to get through locked doors and pesky fences alike or an even more involved process where unique obstacles like electric fences, active mines and jeeps on patrols are concerned! A big part of how you go about this largely revolves around gathering various items and combining them into mostly illegal but useful tools that can aid a player in their escape plan. How you get these can be gained from either snooping around other prisoners' desks when they aren't looking or looting an unconscious prisoner although usually it comes down to training on your Intellect so you can make many of the desirable items (some of which are otherwise unobtainable) or working out on your Strength and Speed stats so that you can fare better in combat as part of a prison breakout or when doing a fellow prisoner a 'favour'. These favours tie into not just increasing one's reputation with that specific NPC but gaining money, which is also quite handy for buying items without risking the anger of prisoners and guards alike! Since a big aspect of being in each prison is that you have several jobs that you need to do in order to gain money, however one important detail of this is that certain jobs have perks to them that others do not. For example, a gardener or janitor can freely roam the prison whilst doing their job which makes doing other activities on the side easier. Meanwhile a metalshop or woodshop worker has access to an infinite amount of contraband that, with the right tools, they can smuggle through detectors for further usage in their own escape plans. Considering how involved the whole process of forming that perfect plan is, certainly I find it to be quite the exhilarating experience when attempting a daring escape! However one noticeable negative in all of this is that trying to gather specific supplies can prove to be quite the frustrating exercise. Duct tape is one special type of item that you'll likely be on the hunt for as this is key to many useful tools for escaping, though having plenty of money and frequently checking on prisoners who are selling alongside looking through each desk every single day helps to mitigate this issue somewhat. Another point of contention is how trying to work out a more 'clandestine' approach can be quite tricky without spending entire days or even weeks wasting both resources and time working out the layout of the prison that is outside of the areas where prisoners are allowed to be in. This can prove to be annoying when you plan an escape and think it will go to plan, only for a wide array of new threats to come up and catch you off-guard which sends you to a trip down solitary lane and losing pretty much all progress! (It's why I recommend closing the game and restarting the day to minimize frustration) Other small issues that I had outside of the extensive waiting periods for the right items to show up would be the arguably-dated pixel graphics that will turn some modern gamers off (something the sequel solved quite nicely, albeit that has its own problem with the game's challenge veering towards being too easy) alongside the price point being a bit too high when you look at what the indies of today has to offer, though thankfully this game frequently goes on sale at a good discount. Having said that though, The Escapists has a lot to offer where these types of unique experiences go as there is a fair amount of strategy that goes into how to plan your own route of escape here and it's one that I am quite glad to have fully experienced the way that the developers behind Team 17 originally intended! Certainly go out of your to buy this, especially if it's on sale as it currently is at the time of writing this review with a hefty 80% discount, and see if you are up for the task of breaking out of jail with all of the fun and exciting thrills that it entails! TLDR Version: • Unique simulation game where it puts you in the shoes of a prisoner looking to escape prison, with plenty of options available at the player's disposal for those patient and cunning enough to pull it off (+) • Offers a multitude of systems to keep track off that influences the player's ability to engage with other prisoners and guards alongside crafting various items, all whilst sticking to a strict schedule to avoid heat and detection (+) • Provides six increasingly challenging prisons that all have various routes of escape for the player to work out and build towards in secret (+) • The Escapists has a simple yet endearing pixel artstyle that is visually pleasing to the eye as far as retro fans will enjoy (+) • Resource gathering can prove problematic when in need of a specific item to progress, with duct tape being a particularly egregious example with it being key to many crucial craftable items, as this slows down gameplay (-) • The game's graphics is likely to put off some as will be the 'hard as nails' challenge, something the sequel makes an effort in improving (-) • Working out how to escape is often a 'trial by error' as solutions won't be apparent until you make enough progress to find out, losing lots of hard work and progress without shutting down and restarting the game (-) • The Escapists' price point of £12.99 will be a hard bargain for those who don't buy this title when it's on a steep discount (-)
Active players
Estimated daily and monthly active players (DAU/MAU) modeled from peak concurrency.
Players by region
Where this game's players are, estimated from review languages.
Players also reviewed
The games this title's players most often review too — audience affinity.
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