Prison Architect 2 News

[h2]What is Career Mode in Prison Architect 2?[/h2]
Join us for this exclusive behind-the-scenes look into the Career mode of Prison Architect 2 featuring our devs at Double Eleven 👇

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[h3]🎥 In this video you’ll meet: [/h3]

🧩 Designer Natalie Wicks who will tell you all you need to know about the Career Mode in Prison Architect 2 as well as give us a look into the history of the feature.

📖 Game Director Gareth Wright who talks about how things evolved from the original Prison Architect to Prison Architect 2 and the possibilities of the Career Mode feature.

🎨 Lead Animator Craig McMullen who will tell you more about the animations used, specifically how their work with facial expressions on characters could be used in the Career Mode’s features.

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[h3]Want more?[/h3]
You have not missed the first episode of the Dev Highlight where Double Eleven talks about how Prison Architect 2 was made right? If you against all odds have, you can check out that video here:

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Do you have a topic that you wish to know more about regarding Prison Architect 2? Add a comment about it in the discussion below so we can give you all the fencetastic facts before the game release on the 7th of May!

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[h3]Next up: Prison Architect Academy - Finances with TheGeekCupboard [/h3]
We have a tutorial made by TheGeekCupboard coming up next week - Tune in to learn how you can manage your finances in Prison Architect 2, and tap the bell on YouTube to get notified 🔔
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Make sure to subscribe to the Prison Architect YouTube to not miss out on any new tutorials, teasers, and more!

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[h2]Join our Giveaways![/h2]


[h3]Need something to play whilst waiting for Prison Architect 2? [/h3]
We are hosting weekly giveaways on our Facebook and X(Twitter). This week you have the chance to win the Island Bound DLC! Make sure to tune in on Wednesdays to join the giveaways! 👇
Join the Giveaway!

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✅Join our communities
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[h2]Watch TheGeekCupboard show the different management tools available in Prison Architect 2![/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
⚠️ Please note: The visuals and gameplay footage showcased in this video are from earlier development phases and may not accurately reflect the final game. Anticipate improvements in quality upon release.

The Devs have some additional words to accompany this tutorial - read more about what the devs can tell us about the inmate’s needs below!

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What’s up, fellow architects?
We’re back to preview more features on Prison Architect 2, before its release into the wild. This week we’ll be talking about some of the tools at your prison-running disposal (no, not the type of tool that Prisoners use to tunnel).

[h2]Feature Highlight #7 - Prison Tools[/h2]
[h3]The Sharpest Tools in the Sandbox[/h3]
There are a whole load of tricks at your disposal when you’re running your own prison, and we’re going to dig into a handful of them today. Whether it’s the essentials of staff recruitment and prisoner Intake or the minutiae of prison policies, we’ve got you covered.


[h3]Sorting the Wheat from the Staff[/h3]
How are you going to run your prison without staff members? Poorly, that’s how. Luckily we’ve provided a wide range of employees to bolster your lockdown. You can hire various staff members by accessing the Staff menu at the bottom of the screen.



From there, there are three ‘types’ of staff you can hire: Workforce, Security, and Admin. The workforce makes up a bulk of the people who will run your prison; the Workers who build it, the Janitors who handle laundry, and the Cooks who provide square meals to your prisoners. Security staff are the ones who ‘handle the inmates’, they are made up of various Guards, Enforcers, and Snipers, who will physically intervene in an attempt to keep peace and order in the prison. The admin staff are your managerial team, who provide access to important Bureaucracy upgrades and earn you XP for the time spent at their desks.

To hire your staff member, all you need to do is go to the Staff menu, choose the tab with your employee type, and then pick the role you’d like to hire from the list on the left-hand side. You’ll be shown their daily wage on the Hire button. You can also fire your employees from this menu, by right-clicking their headshot in the staff list. Furthermore, you can select individual staff members in the world and fire them from their personal info panel.


Make sure you’re not over-staffing, as the wage list for your prison is normally the largest expense. You can check how your cash flow is doing from the Finances tab in the Admin menu (but we’ll talk about this more in a future article).

[h3]All you do is Intake, Intake, Intake![/h3]
Once you’ve got enough staff to handle your prisoner population, it’s time for Intake! By going to the Prisoners menu at the bottom of your screen, you can choose how many prisoners you want to bring in, of the different security classes available to you. You’ll start with access to Minimum and Medium security inmates, and higher securities can be unlocked in the Bureaucracy menu.


There are a bunch of additional options you can apply to your intake. If you have the new Arrival Times upgrade unlocked, you can choose what time the bus arrives, as opposed to the standard 9 am drop-off. You can also choose whether you want the intake to repeat daily, whether you want your intake to keep your prison at max capacity, or even allow for over-filling your prison. Be aware though, that without a high turnover of prisoners and plenty of holding cell space available, overfilling your prison (while lucrative) can be a disaster.


[h3]Policy, Camera, Action![/h3]
Once you’ve got plenty of Staff and Prisoners, you will probably want to start thinking about the Policies you have in place. Your Policies can have a really big impact on how your prison operates. You can find your Policies by opening the Administration menu.

Prison Policies are things that impact some global rules on how your lockup operates. You’ll need to unlock Policies through Bureaucracy, but once you have them, you can make changes such as choosing which Staff Members carry keys (balancing efficiency and security), or even at what point of their sentence the prisoners are able to apply for Parole (balancing increased release rates against prisoner morale from failed hearings).


The next tab, Punishment, is how you control your Staff response to Prisoners misbehaving. You can choose from some global presets (all the way from Lax to Extreme), or even change the individual severity for each misbehavior, as well as whether the punishment should also trigger a search of that inmate or their cell. This is more impactful than you might think; inmates will respond less positively to harsher punishments and it could lead to further misbehavior, violence, and escape attempts. On the flip side, inmates know what they’re being punished for and how severe it is. The new feature, Punishment Memory, is taken into account the next time that an inmate is making a decision whether or not to misbehave. If they’ve had a recent punishment, and that punishment was strict, they may change their mind about doing it again. This means that you may be able to curb specific issues like high contraband levels, by punishing those misbehaviors more severely. Just be careful; it’s a very fine line to balance.


[h3]We got ahead of ourselves![/h3]
This week’s video also dives into Programs and Labour, which we also touched on a couple of weeks ago! If you want to read more about the classes and courses you can run for your inmates, or how to manage the labor distribution of your prison, you can find more information on the Steam post for Feature Highlight #5.

As always, thanks for reading. We’re spending a little bit of extra time ironing the game out ahead of its full launch, eagerly awaiting the day we can get it into the hands of you players. We love the game and can’t wait to hear what you all think.

Prison Architect Dev Team

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[h2]Next up is Developer Highlight 2:
The World of Career Mode[/h2]

Next week you will get to know all about Career Mode in Prison Architect 2! Click the bell on the YouTube premiere below to get notified when the video is live🔔
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Make sure to subscribe to the Prison Architect YouTube to not miss out on any new tutorials, teasers, and more!

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[h2]Join our Giveaways![/h2]

[h3]Need something to play whilst waiting for Prison Architect 2? [/h3]
We are hosting weekly giveaways on our Facebook and X(Twitter). Next week you have the chance to win the Psych Ward: Wardens edition! Make sure to tune in on Wednesdays for even more giveaways all the way up to the release of Prison Architect 2! 👇
Join the Giveaway!

✅Join our communities
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We need your help to test out the modding tools for Prison Architect 2 - If you’ve created mods in the past, take a second to apply to our Modding Program! There is a limited amount of spots so make sure to apply ASAP for a chance to be a part of the program.

As a Modder in the Prison Architect 2 Modding Program, you’d get:

• Closed Testing Access to Prison Architect 2
  
• Close contact with the Prison Architect 2 team to leave feedback on the game and its modding tools
  
• The opportunity to have your Mod live and featured at Prison Architect 2’s release!
  

To be considered for the program you need to have made mods in the past, be 18 years or older, and sign an NDA(Non-Disclosure Agreement). Interested? Sign this form below:

Prison Architect 2 Modding Program Form

Once our team has looked over all the entries we’ll reach out to you via email if you’re moving on to the next step in the Modders Program Application process. To clarify once more, this is a Closed Testing of Prison Architect 2’s modding tools. Once given access to the game you cannot share any footage of it with anyone but yourself, you will be able to read more about this in the NDA.

If you are not a modder yourself, do you have someone in mind you think should join the program? Make sure to share this post with them!

Thank you! the Prison Architect 2 Team

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✅Join our communities
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[h3]Watch Stuff+ show how inmates behave and act with one another in Prison Architect 2![/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
⚠️ Please note: The visuals and gameplay footage showcased in this video are from earlier development phases and may not accurately reflect the final game. Anticipate improvements in quality upon release.

The Devs have some additional words to accompany this tutorial - read more about what the devs can tell us about the inmates' needs below!

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Welcome back, Architects. We’re here to chat about one of our favourite parts of the game: the inmates. It’s sometimes easy to forget that behind the misbehaviour and crimes, are human beings with a whole life both outside and inside your prison walls. Let’s begin!


[h2]It’s all Bio-logy[/h2]
All of the important information about your individual inmates can be found in their Bio. The Bio is really the core of who the prisoners are, why they’re locked up, and what they’ve done since they’ve been here. It includes tonnes of helpful information not just about their sentence, but also why they might do the things they do.

The information is split into the following tabs: Bio (an overview of their sentence and personality Traits), Needs (how they are feeling right now), Connections (who they like, who they don’t), and Record (what they’ve done while locked up).


[h3]Dire Traits[/h3]
Traits determine a lot about an inmate: they can affect their personality, physical and mental skills, social attitudes, and much more. Traits can be Complementary or Conflicting, and play a major factor in how inmates perceive each other. For example;

• An inmate with the Parental Figure trait may be more likely to enjoy the company of people who are Young;
  
• People who are Pushovers are more likely to gravitate to those with a Silver Tongue;
  
• Literally no one likes a Coward (not even other cowards).

If you have two inmates who are constantly getting into scrapes with each other, there’s a good chance they have incompatible personalities.


[h3]Connect the Dots[/h3]
Inmates can form Connections based on their interactions with each other. Connections are built, change over time, and can be lost or forgotten. Every time an inmate interacts with another, they get Connection points, a small positive or negative number based on how they felt about that interaction. They had a nice chat? +5 points! Someone punched them in the face? Big negative penalty! Positive interactions can come from a wide range of places such as chatting, sharing a canteen table, or engaging in social Recreation activities like Table Football or Chess. Negative interactions can come about from interactions such as sharing a cell with someone with conflicting traits or the outcome of fights.


In Prison Architect 2 players can use the Regime, rooms and objects to create social hangout areas and things for prisoners to do together, and thus help to promote prisoner connections.
The addition of bunk beds and shared cells also means that players can group friends together, or use the Cell Transfer feature to separate others not getting along.


Positive interactions, which increase the overall Connection score, can push inmates from being Acquaintances to Friends, Close Friends, or Best Friends. Negative interactions, on the other hand, will likely lead to Rivalries, Enemies, and Arch Enemies. Generally, the more extreme the score, the more problematic the Connection will be for you the player.



It’s worth noting that Connections are not symmetrical, and even if one Inmate considers the other their Close Friend, the other could consider them a Rival.

[h3]The Friends We Made Along the Way[/h3]
The Connections between your inmates can have a really big impact on your prison, and the issues you’ll need to respond to. It might be somewhat obvious that Enemies are more likely to attack each other on sight but, on the flip side, Close Friends are much more likely to help each other in Escape attempts, or even heal an injury if they have the skills. If a really popular inmate dies while in your prison, then all of their friends will spend the next couple of days grieving.


Connections have a really big impact on how prisoners make decisions, so it’s worth understanding where the problem areas are. By using the Popularity and Infamy Infoviews (accessed on the right-hand side of the screen), you can see a colour overlay of those with the strongest connections whether good or bad.


[h3]On the Record[/h3]
The last tab on an inmate’s Bio is their Record. The first pieces of info it gives you are a snapshot of the inmate’s Parole details: essentially ‘How long have they served?’ and ‘How likely is a Parole Hearing to be successful?’. There are a lot of things that make up someone’s Parole Chance - outside of the length of sentence they’ve served. Officials will also consider how they’ve reformed, such as which qualifications they’ve acquired on the inside, the number of hours spent working, and the inmate’s recent behavior and punishments.



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Thanks once again for joining us for this feature dive! In early development, we knew that one of the most important parts of the Prison Architect experience was the emergent stories that the inmates inadvertently generated, and we are really excited to see how those stories play out now the inmates are generating them on purpose! Will you build a nurturing prison full of best buds, or a harsh environment full of rivalry and squabbles?

The Dev Team
Prison Architect 2

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[h2]Next up on Prison Architect Academy:
Prison Tools[/h2]

Next week we’ll be telling you all the tools you use to run your prison in Prison Architect 2 - Click the bell on the YouTube premiere below to get notified when the video is live 🔔

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Make sure to subscribe to the Prison Architect YouTube to not miss out on any new tutorials, teasers, and more!

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[h2]Join our Giveaways![/h2]

[h3]Need something to play whilst waiting for Prison Architect 2? [/h3]
Starting tomorrow we’ll be hosting weekly giveaways on our X(Twitter) starting with the Prison Architect 1 Base Game and continuing onwards with Prison Architect 1 DLCs! Make sure to tune in on Wednesdays 👇
Follow us on X to join the Giveaways!

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✅Join our communities
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[h3]Hello Architects, [/h3]

After careful consideration, we have made the decision to delay the release of Prison Architect 2 to 7 May 2024. While we are already confident in the game, this extra time will enable us to fix more bugs and further optimize the game for all platforms. Although sticking to the original launch date was an option, we feel that taking this additional time is necessary to ensure that we offer you a smoother experience from day one.



We also want to show you how the development of the game is going in these final stages, which is why we'll be starting streams up in March to go alongside our Prison Architect Academy series. Stay tuned to find out the dates and times for these.

We would love to build the future of Prison Architect 2 and its community together with you. Please keep giving us suggestions and feedback, let’s go on this journey together!

You can send us your suggestions and vote for things already suggested in our forum:
https://pdxint.at/PA2Suggestions


The Prison Architect 2 Team

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✅Join our communities
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