DLCThe Escapists - AlcatrazLoading store offers
The Escapists
In The Escapists, roll calls, jobs, and guards become pieces of your escape plan, and several routes let you choose how to break out. At ≈ $2.35 from 
CDKeys, it is best suited to players who value self-directed sandbox planning. Steam players rate it 90%% positive across 14,331 reviews.
The Steam PC version offers single-player play, multiple save slots, and a prison editor. German is among the supported interface languages. This offer is ≈ $0.24 below Steam’s current price of $2.59, making CDKeys the lower-priced option.
All-time low ~ $1.92across Steam & third-party stores
Loading store offers
Wishlist price
Set a target to receive an email when an eligible offer in your selected region is at or below that amount.
Price History
Past 36 months · Updated dailyHistorical Low~ $1.922025-11Current Low Across Stores~ $3.23GameBilletvs. Historical Low+68%
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
01About The Escapists
The Escapists is a prison sandbox about engineering your own escape. Keep up appearances by following routines and working a prison job, then gather and combine items while hiding your preparations from the guards. You choose how to break out, whether by digging a tunnel, blending in, or finding another route. Steam players rate the game 90%% positive from 14,331 reviews. The Steam PC version supports English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, and Portuguese interfaces. Released February 13, 2015.
Credits
Developer
Mouldy Toof Studios
Publisher
Team17
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$1.922025-11-22 · GameBilletBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.Language support
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Yes | Yes | — |
| French | Yes | Yes | — |
| German | Yes | Yes | — |
Show 4 more languages
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spanish | Yes | Yes | — |
| Polish | Yes | Yes | — |
| Russian | Yes | Yes | — |
| Italian | Yes | Yes | — |
Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-22
02Before you buy
Play and language
The Steam PC version has single-player mode and Steam achievements. Interface and subtitles are supported in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, and Portuguese; full audio is not listed.
Saves and editor
Multiple save slots let you keep more than one escape attempt underway. The prison editor lets you create prisons and share them with the community.
03Frequently asked questions
What do you do in the game?
Follow routines such as roll call and work while gathering and crafting items, hiding supplies, and avoiding guards.
What escape routes are available?
Plan an escape through options such as digging a tunnel, stealing a guard uniform, or starting a riot.
Can I create prisons?
Yes. The prison editor lets you build your own prison and share it with the community.
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviewsSelected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
Day 1 Bill offered me $25 to beat Bill up Day 2 Bill offered me $18 to find a battery Bill stole from him There is only one person named Bill in my prison 10/10Show moreShow less
4.5 hours at review1,133 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Whenever I look back at this game in my library, I think to myself. 'huh, why haven't I completed this game, it seems like a fun single player game.' then I remember why, not because of the style, not because of the soundtrack or anything to do with the outward appearance, just one small insignificant game mechanic that frustrates me to no end. If you leave any trace of something that can be slightly constrewed as an escape attempt, you are teleported to solitary confinement. Solitary confinement as a game mechanic is fine, IF the guards can manage to get me in there, but no matter where you are, in the air vents? teleported. Hidding in a locker? Teleported. Already outside of the prison? Teleported. The worst part is, they already had a system in place that would be much better for this. Lockdown and reinforcements. When a prisoner goes missing or a wall is out of place, don't just teleport the player into solitary confinement, make the guards actually ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ look for them. PS: This is even more of a problem when trying to frame someone, I put a hole in the back of another prisoner's wall and cut the bars to their cell, all without being noticed, I then hid in a locker and with no evidence whatsoever, I was the one thrown in solitary confinement.Show moreShow less
21.3 hours at review601 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Needs Multiplayer for more Fun!Show moreShow less
3 hours at review822 people found this helpful
Written during Early Access
Not recommendedSteam player
It's okay, fun for about an hour for me but then felt really repetitive 7/10. Probably not worth the money. Update: Okay seems most people didn't appreciate my review because it was brief. I didn't like this game because of a few things. Most importantly because it didn't generate much emotion in me over the course of time I played. There is no tension to the combat or trying to escape because theres really no consequence to getting knocked out or the equivalent of 'dying' in other games. You get sent to the infirmary with full health instantly after 'dying', you lose your items but its not like it even matters because you can usually find them again within 5 minutes, no consequences for your lack of effort. You get a series of objectives throughout the game most of which are probably randomly generated and therefore pretty dull. It ranges from, distract a guard at X time, or knock out X character and grab an item from him or, a fetch quest, get me X item, repeat ad nauseam. You follow a prison routine throughout the game so you can potentially have a 'job' within the game, you start out cleaning dirty laundry, but can upgrade to a woodshop or a metalshop. Essentially more boring repetitive quests, move here, grab laundry, stick it in washing machines and then stick it in the clean bin. It's not fun in real life and its not fun here. Most of the time it amounted to me meeting the quota then just sitting still waiting for the timer to run out until I could leave. Often times you'll just get killed by cheap shots from a guard with a sniper in the yard and instantly sent to the infirmary, sometimes it's not really clear why you got shot and its nearly instant, but again theres almost no consequence to that happening. The combat is just click on a person and wait, if you have a good enough weapon and strength, you win. Which brings me to the stats. You have three stats you can level up. Strength, speed, and intelligence. Strength gives you more health and I assume more damage, speed is yeah, and intelligence lets you craft more items as well as get the other jobs. The issue I have with these is more boring uninspired repetition. To build strength you mash Q and E incessantly for a VERY long time to level up, to build speed, guess what, mash Q and E incessantly for a VERY long time, to level up intelligence, you click on a bookshelf about 100 times over and over and over, once again ad nauseam. Overall I did have some fun with this game but overall the pacing felt really jarring to me, there's no consequences for your actions, you have to do a large list of repetitive tasks and it just felt like a lackluster experience overall, there's a LOT of games on steam and I honestly feel your money could be spent better elsewhere.Show moreShow less
2.3 hours at review317 people found this helpful
Written during Early Access
RecommendedSteam player
"Welcome to the Salty Spitoon, how tough are you." "How tough am I, i escaped HMP irongate." "So." "Without any Duct tape." "Right this way sir sorry to keep you waiting."Show moreShow less
57.7 hours at review790 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I really wanted to like this game. The concept is super cool, and the fact that it's basically a puzzle game is very interesting, but the gameplay itself doesn't have any soul. It too often feels like work. Very little of what you have to do is intuitive, specifically the crafting and how you are meant to interact with the environment. Items have no descriptions to indicate their potential functions. Characters are just pawns to manipulate, you can't really interact with them in a meaningful way to glean info on how the game works, what might be going on in your prison, or what you might be able to do with them (on top of them being personally indistinguishable from one another). I too often just had to look something up to see if I could do it, and if I could, how, because it was rarely obvious. For example, I knocked out a guard and immediately tried what I knocked him out for: making a mold of his key using my soap bar. Nope. Or how about making the key using the correct mold - molten plastic? Got a lighter and a plastic fork and - nope. Plastic has to come from a comb or toothbrush, I discovered when I looked it up. Alternatively, I could pay my character's money to use the payphone to get randomized hints about what to do, but why can't I just glean this info from playing the game? It is otherwise simply not there. The stats for your character also feel like artificial blockades, and why they degrade I'm not really sure. I don't want to spend 3 minutes clicking one spot in order to get smarter, or pressing the Q and E keys over and over to get stronger or faster. It's just not fun, so why have it? The worst part is you don't level these stats up in any other way besides the exercise task or the reading task, so you are forced to engage in these activities. Increasing these stats based on what quests you complete would have been a good idea, or based on moving around the prison, but it doesn't work that way - you must exercise or read, which amounts to wasting time both in-game and in real life. Nothing quantified how I feel about this game better than clicking the bookshelf and watching the "reading" meter fill up over the course of a couple seconds. When the game works, it works very well. Attempting an escape is thrilling and got my pulse going. It's just the process of getting there that is not fun. I don't want to have to have a browser window open when I can't figure out why I can't combine a pillow and a prison outfit to make a bed dummy, or why the entrance key won't let me out of the prison, and for that matter what these colored locks mean and why I have to actually obtain the keys to them before I can even see their names. This game feels like it was designed by people who are very comfortable with having a browser window open in crafting and survival games, as though that's just the accepted reality of these games. That's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ reality, man.Show moreShow less
9.7 hours at review269 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Awesome!Just some suggestions... Great game in general, though a little tedeous at times. I think everything in this game is perfect except for one thing... Make this game multiplayer. Imagine escaping prisons with your friends and working together. i personally think that would be AWESOME! So add that.Show moreShow less
9.1 hours at review703 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Dammit, I bought another game that was in early access and I feel screwed. I bought it after the "Full Release" though, so why do I feel screwed? Because this game does not feel like it should have been moved to "Full Release" yet. Don't get me wrong. I love the idea of it and the degree of freedom it gives in terms of strategies you can come up with. I love the 8-bit semi-goofy guards, inmates, and general prison life. I love the interactions with your peers in crime and the routines of the day that you can end up using to your advantage. I love what they've done with it so far -- and while that is something okay to say about an early access game, it is not okay to say about a Full Release. You see, none of those things feel fully fleshed out. Sure the NPCs have funny dialogue, but by 2-3 in-game days of play, you've heard it all. Oh, someone ate all the cream custards again? Or stole the warden's toupee? Shouldn't he have that glued on by now? And the amount of times your hear about an inmate's wife leaving them or dying is just not possible in a monogamistic society. You can do favors for your fellow inmates but these are a selection of 3 different types of "Quests" with random targets: you're either going to find them an item, distract the guards at a specific time, or beat up someone they don't like. They get pretty repetitive shortly, and sometimes they play out ridiculously -- you beat someone up, notice they have a quest item on them for a quest that they gave you, take it from them, and then give it back to them to complete the quest. Some people think that's quirky and funny but to me it's an incomplete system. Why can I give someone their own pillow and complete a quest for them? And it would be cool to see other quest types, too, like an inmate asking you to plant evidence in another inmate's cell, or have them invite you to their escape attempts or vice-versa. One of the biggest things that seems unfinished are the so-called "Instabusts". When you break a vent, dig a hole, steal a guard's key or do anything else "escapy", even when no guard is in sight or would otherwise know, you are almost intantly discovered unless you do something to cover it up. It makes sense to make a fake vent cover so a guard strolling by later won't notice anything suspicious, but they notice RIGHT AWAY, relying only on their psychic guard powers. They know it was you whether you're breaking a vent in the bathroom or have dug a hole in another inmate's cell, too. Sneakiness is out the window. Plus, the second that they detect you, you're thrown into solitary. They don't start sweeping the cells or climbing into the vents, you're just caught. With a note from the Warden saying "Nice Try", of course. I can practically hear a meeting between the developers where one of them said, "And then we'll have the guards start a search or line up everybody for inspection," but they just never implemented it. It's a game mechanic where something more should happen but doesn't, and it feels incomplete. When you put all these things together, you realize that the game's promise of "Think up your Own Escape Plan" doesn't really let you do all the strategies you may come up with. Want to conspire with other inmates to set up distractions or get supplies for you? Can't. Want to go to a seldom-patrolled part of the prison and climb into the vents? The guards will know anyway. Can you even make a key out of soap, one of the most used prison-break tropes? Nope. Even as I write this, I worry I'm being too hard on this game. It's not like any of these things make it unplayable or broken. It just doesn't feel like a Full Release. In the time I played I kept thinking of mechanics and details that it would be cool for the dev team to add, but it's not in Early Access anymore. The game is even fun to play for a while, and this review is sooooo close to a Recommended. But, in the end, the game doesn't seem to have enough polish to make that fun varied or lasting. They should have finished it first.Show moreShow less
12.3 hours at review155 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDR3s-rwR4I&list=PLBqXrq67D6opAYyFG3uBPUlju_GMrN1Bg&index=2 After 7 hours playing The Escapists I have to say it's fun and above all addicting! I'm playing with press access. No matter what route you decide to take, a man of the block prisoner or an educate one, your objective is always the same, escape. There's no wandering for 30 years. Don't let the art style fool you, it is light-hearted but it's challenging as heck. Just like in reality you have to carefully make all your moves and stick to the plan. If something fails you're off to the solitaire, items confiscated and your plan ruined. Fortunately you can load saved games. Pros - crafting items, and there's a lot of choices - save games when you return to the cell at the end of the day - you just don't run out of things to do, the game encourages you to keep moving - it's damn challenging - play it your own way - it's damn funny watching all the incidents during the day, prisoners will interact with each other Cons - the music is repetitive, I had to turn it off and pick my playlist - no customization, I would like to customize my character other than the nameShow moreShow less
16.7 hours at review665 people found this helpful
Written during Early Access
Not recommendedSteam player
The idea is solid. maintain your prison life while secretly plotting your escape. The problem falls on the mechanics. Stats and relationships fall extremely fast. The tutorial tells you almost nothing of value. Crafting unlocks are hard to come by making the game frustrating without a wiki or tutoial. The worst offender, though, is the guard AI. They apparently hire all guards from the psychic network. Guard finds random thing in random place: blam you're caught. Guard is walking by a dark room at night and instantly notices the vent is open: blam caught. Guard goes to check your room that has a hole covered and all contraband smuggled out: he decides to look behind the poster, blam again. You've been crawling through the vents you wait until things are clear climb down: blam guard come speeding down the hallway befor you can react. And, of course if you are caught, they know instantly where everything you've set up is and undo it. I want to like this game, but it feels more like a chore than fun. There is some charm and some entertaining things that can happen, but there is little pay-off to what you put in.Show moreShow less
9.9 hours at review152 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.