Prison Architect

Only the world’s most ruthless Warden can contain the world’s most ruthless inmates. Design and develop your personalized penitentiary in Prison Architect.

Prison Architect is a simulation, building and sandbox game developed by Double Eleven and Introversion Software and published by Paradox Interactive.
Released on October 06th 2015 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux in 15 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Korean, Polish, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish - Spain, Dutch, Japanese, Swedish, Traditional Chinese and Turkish.

It has received 71,352 reviews of which 63,757 were positive and 7,595 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.8 out of 10. 😎

The game is currently priced at 4.99€ on Steam and has a 80% discount.

The Steam community has classified Prison Architect into these genres:

Simulation Building Sandbox Base-Building Colony Sim Strategy Management City Builder 2D Top-Down Multiplayer Resource Management Economy Singleplayer Moddable Capitalism Funny Replay Value Indie Casual

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at Prison Architect through various videos and screenshots.

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Requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows

OS:Windows® 10 Home 64 Bit
Processor:Intel Core2 Duo 2.4Ghz or Higher / AMD 3Ghz or Higher
Memory:6 GB RAM
Graphics:Nvidia 8600 / Radeon equivalent (2009 era)
Hard Drive:400 MB HD space

MacOS

Processor:2009 era Macbook Pro, Core2 Duo processor
Memory:6 GB RAM
Hard Drive:400 MB HD space

Linux

OS: Ubuntu 18 or later
Processor: Intel Core2 Duo 2.4Ghz or Higher / AMD 3Ghz or Higher
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia 8600 / Radeon equivalent (2009 era)
Hard Drive: 500 MB HD space

Reviews

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Oct. 2024

Overall it's a pretty good game, however it's obvious that Paradox has left important and notable updates aside instead adding irrelevant content and features with little to none bug fixes (and this game has a considerable ammount of bugs, specially in the campaign). Meanwhile, relevant additions usually come in the form of DLCs, which some of them should have been just normal updates (so nothing new coming from Paradox after all), and now that Paradox seems to be focusing on Prison Architect 2, it seems that this game will just get completely abandoned. From my personal experience, this game is fun at the beginning, but after some days it might get repetitive and boring, especially Escape Mode (in which by just using a lighter you can escape any prison), however it has a certain replayability as this is the type of game you'll be leaving and coming back to over the months or even years. I'd say this game is fun and worth giving a try, however don't expect more content or updates being added, and the upcoming Prison Architect 2 might be more worth it after all, who knows.

Aug. 2024

Prison Architect is one of those games, kind of like the sims, with which you occasionally have the brief moments of clarity where you realize that you're wasting your time scheduling and organizing the lives of simulated people and you get the sudden urge to do something productive in real life like build some furniture or take a cooking class. Thankfully these moments pass and you can go back to playing the game.

June 2024

This is a fun game. It's challenging. Although there are times where the simulation seems to be not performing tasks for unknown reasons, you can typically figure it out after some time. I'd say the biggest challenge in this game is just getting a fully functioning prison that can house 50 inmates without constant danger and incidents. You have to really balance how fast you expand and build. It's a lot of trial and error. Every addition to your prison needs a few days of time to settle in before you add more rooms and things to do. Be careful with taking on too much! And focus on security, patrols and informants. Don't forget to play the game within the game, or everything will turn to chaos. Have fun. I love all of you, forever.

May 2024

---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☐ Good ☑ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☑ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☑ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☑ Potato ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Game Size }--- ☑ Floppy Disk ☐ Old Fashioned ☐ Workable ☐ Big ☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive ☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it ☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☑ Easy ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☑ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☑ Some lore ☐ Average ☐ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☐ Average ☐ Long ☑ To infinity and beyond (Re-playable with mods) ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☐ Worth the price ☑ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☐ Never heard of ☑ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☑ 7 ☐ 8 ☐ 9 ☐ 10

Feb. 2024

Recommended, with a caveat. tl;dr - Amazing game! Problematic publisher. I bought Prison Architect back in 2014. I loved it! It's still one of the best games of its kind (i.e. Rimworld, Keplerth, etc.). Here's the caveat... I came back a few years ago to find that Paradox now owns it. There are several criticisms to be made about them, but the one thing that I absolutely despise about Paradox is their insistence on inserting their launcher between me and the game I want to play. I don't care about your ads, Paradox. I just want to play the game. I own a few other Paradox games and hardly touch them for this reason. That launcher elicits an "instant uninstall" reflex. Here's the upside... The pre-Paradox version of the game is still available in the Beta settings, and with a little filename frickery you can bypass the launcher if you play the older version.

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Data sources

The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.

Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.

Last Updates

Steam data	20 January 2025 00:30
SteamSpy data	20 January 2025 12:03
Steam price	24 January 2025 20:43
Steam reviews	22 January 2025 22:00

-80% 24.99€ 4.99€

8.8

63,757

7,595

Online players

1,096

Developer

Double Eleven, Introversion Software

Publisher

Paradox Interactive

Release 06 Oct 2015

Platforms