Prison Architect’s final update gives the first glimpse of a 3D sequel
The game came out in 2012.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Developers Double Eleven have released the final update for Prison Architect, appropriately enough called the Sunset update, which doesn’t so much tease a 3D sequel as show off a bit of it. The update comes with a short trailer thanking all the game’s players for the past 11 years (it was released in Alpha by original developer Introversion in 2012), at the end of which one of the prisoner character models pops into 3D as the rest of the crowd gasps.
“It’s been a real joy and honor here at Paradox Interactive and Double Eleven to work on this game for you,” writes Double Eleven. “It’s been just over a decade since Introversion first put out an Alpha build of Prison Architect and the game has come so far since then. While we’re closing this chapter, the book is certainly not yet finished. We’ll see you around.”
The update contains a bunch of quality-of-life changes “focused on improving the player experience as much as possible” which include among other things a ‘Super Dog Mutator’. The full list is:
Introversion sold Prison Architect to Paradox Interactive in 2019, since when Double Eleven’s been looking after the game and releasing both free updates and the odd paid expansion. The tease for a 3D sequel is not entirely out of the blue either, asthe game’s had a ‘secret’ 3D mode since 2015 implemented by Introversion.
“It was basically a massive engine hack that gave a fascinating alternative view on your prison—literally looking at it from a new angle,” Introversion’s lead designer Chris Delay told us back in 2016. “We never managed to bring it up to a decent quality sufficient to actually say ‘This is now an official feature.'” Even though Introversion didn’t think it was quite there, they decided to add it in the 1.0 as a nice bonus for players.
“We did think it was very cool, hence hiding it as an Easter egg for people to discover,” said Delay. “Why let such an awesome, albeit completely unfinished feature, go to waste?”
Well, it looks like the idea will not be going to waste. There’s no details on the 3D sequel beyond that glimpse of the prisoner model, but ‘Prison Architect in 3D’ is such an obvious pitch that it’s almost surprising it’s taken Double Eleven and Paradox this long to get round to it. Introversion’s current project isThe Last Starship, a spaceship construction game released earlier this year that’s in alpha and receives updates roughly every six weeks.
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Rich is a games journalist with 15 years’ experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as “[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike.”
China: Mao’s Legacy is like an absurdly specific Paradox game on a tight budget, and also one of the best sims I’ve ever played
Planet Coaster 2 review
I desperately hope Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Disco Elysium inspire more RPG devs to reject the traditional drip, drip, drip of DLC and expansions
