Prison Architect

I stopped playing in early 2018, no particular reason for it just moved to other games. I thought I noticed a tonal shift when DLC started getting added. Turns out I was just noticing Paradox's influence. Upon playing again in 2025, it has become apparent that this game has lost it's soul to corporate greed(and its ability to fix bugs). At least it allows for booting on the 2018 edition(prior to Paradox acquiring the game), because of course the original team's work is still better than several years of vague "QOL" updates and shoehorned DLC(why tf did we need a power export DLC that doesn't use prison labor?).

Paradox fucking ruined this game. It's a barely playable buggy mess now. Go to hell, Paradox.

-Horribly unbalanced economy -Marking construction as urgent seemingly does nothing at all -With DLC you get special inmates without even requesting them -Prisoners will consistently complain about needs they have the ability to meet Overall a pretty frustrating experience

POW camps have a better standard of living than the stuff the average player makes. Peak

Needs more terms and conditions for me to play, Paradox please fix.

An amazing concept but horrible execution. Missing too many QoL features but worst of all the game is completely unintuitive. Why does it take 1 in game hour to walk a few inches on the screen.

created a realistic simulation of alligator alcatraz, very cool!

I went in thinking, “How hard could it be to run a prison?” Turns out, very. At first, it’s all fun and games: build some walls, plop down a few cells, maybe a canteen. Suddenly, prisoners are rioting because I forgot to give them toilets, my guards are overwhelmed, the kitchen caught fire, and one guy tunneled his way out faster than I can dig through my fridge at 2AM. The game is basically a chaotic mix of SimCity and Shawshank Redemption. You’re balancing budgets, human rights, and the fact that your prisoners will literally stab each other with a spoon if you don’t keep them entertained. And somehow… it’s addictive. I keep telling myself, “Okay, just fix the power grid and then I’ll log off.” Three hours later, I’m redesigning my entire prison wing because I decided the cafeteria wasn’t feng shui enough. The best part? Every time I think I’ve mastered it, the game humbles me. “Oh, you thought you had security under control? Here’s a gang war.” “...

Riddled with bugs that will never get fixed, as the game is no longer in development

I really, really loved this game. But now it is annoyingly buggy and lacks features in a lot of respects: - Sometimes the search order breaks and some cells will never be searched again on a shakedown. No fix or workaround possible. - The economy is now broken. Forestry and farming now mandatory to keep yourself afloat. - Very dangerous prisoners cannot be controlled anymore. If they are in solitary, and they rampage, your guards run in like idiot dogs only to be killed. Those prisoners have to be killed off by cheesing the game with snipers and an extra cell alone in the open so that he tries to breakout. - Dogs reveal tunnels a lot less now. They are now useless. - To change your prison cells or prison wings to only one specific prisoner type, like low or high security, often enough breaks the pathfinding. Sometimes it just doesnt work and the prisoners are not assigned properly, even if the cell value option is switched off. - Sometimes there occurs a bug where specific items or ut...