A post on X from the official Prison Architect account has got fans of the incarceration-based strategy game all excited that we are about to get an announcement of a sequel to the ridiculously popular original.
The post contains a link to a YouTube premiere page inviting viewers to join the team on January 16th at 5 PM (GMT) 9 AM (PT) and at this stage merely reads The Next Chapter.
Created by Introversion Software, the original Prison Architect was crowdfunded in 2012 and made $10 million in pre-sales alone. Introversion Software was one of the original indie darlings with breakout hits such as apocalypse-fest Defcon and Darwinia bringing them huge success and acclaim in the early noughties.
The rights to Prison Architect were bought by strategy giant Paradox Interactive (of Hearts of Iron, Stellaris, Europa Universalis, and the more recent Cities Skylines II. The final update for the original Prison Architect was announced in May 2023 and it seems as though players have not had to wait too long before the much-anticipated sequel gets announced.
Prison Achitects’ unique art style setting the player as the Governer of an increasingly dysfunctional penitentiary was a huge hit and received a lot of love and attention from the modding community with over 70.000 mods added to the game’s Steam Workshop pages over the years including better balancing, graphical overhauls and even a full game mod called Imperial Architect that skinned the game into a Star Wars theme. Some people have too much time on their hands I guess.
Of course, there is still a chance that this is not PA2 and turns out to be some kind of Skyrim-esque Prison Architect: The Definitive Edition VR or something like that, in which case there will be uproar, but we will find out for sure tomorrow.