Paradox delay Prison Architect 2 and cancel preorders: "improving the performance has proven to be a task that will take time"

Jail shake-and-breaker management sim Prison Architect 2 has been delayed indefinitely, a couple of months after publishers Paradox parted ways with original developers Double Eleven. Current developers Kokku will use the additional time "to improve both the game's performance and its content". Additionally, Paradox are removing the option to preorder the game until they have a "robust" release timeline. Existing preorders on all platforms will be refunded, and all preorder-exclusive items will be added into the base game.

Released into 1.0 in 2015, and developed by Introversion, the original Prison Architect is an old RPS favourite. Our own judge-at-large Brendy sentenced it to a Bestest Best, with time added for being "an excellent story-making game" and for being "the only management game that has made me feel sheepish". Introversion sold the property rights to Paradox in 2019, who subsequently put Double Eleven in charge of on-going development.

Announced in January this year, the sequel both impressed and dismayed Katharine (RPS in peace) with its newly 3D graphics. Once due for release in March, it's been repeatedly delayed. Then, in May, Paradox revealed that they and Double Eleven had failed "to find a commercial agreement that worked for both parties moving forward and mutually agreed to part ways". This came after the game had passed certification on all platforms. And yet, it seems that there's still more work to be done.

"At this stage, we can't commit to a new release date as we need to re-assess the scope of the work needed to be done before the game is release-ready," a Paradox rep explained in a forum post today. "Over the next few months, we will focus on improving the game and building a more robust release timeline. This also means we will be limiting our communication with you all until we have a timeline we feel comfortable with."

The post includes a FAQ that goes into slightly more detail about what needs fine-tuning. "Prison Architect is a game with deep systems that all interact with each other, and this is also something we want to bring with us into the sequel, Prison Architect 2," it reads. "Having systems like this in a game also means that a small change in one area will also affect one or more other areas, which we then also need to apply fixes to. Improving the performance has proven to be a task that will take time."

Going by Brendy's hands-on preview from May, Prison Architect 2's problems are at once more straightforward and more fundamental than a few misbehaving systems eating into the frame-rate. "Thematically and mechanically, Prison Architect is about control," he wrote. "It is about little people's lives being directed to a tragicomically draconian degree. But if this franchise is all about being the overbearing loon in charge of every minor detail, does a 3D camera complement that feeling of jealous control? For me, not hugely. If anything, the top-down 2D view of the original allowed you to quickly parse more information."

The Paradox post notes that the delay announcement "aligns with our commitment here at Paradox to reviewing and improving the quality of our released content." This may allude to CEO Fredrik Wester's admission last month that the publishers have "made the wrong calls in several projects, especially outside of our core, and this must change". Paradox's recent activities include shuttering Tectonic, developers of Life By You, washing their hands of Harebrained Schemes following dismal sales of Lamplighters League, and handing off the infamously troubled Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 to The Chinese Room after years of development under Hardsuit Labs. Prison Architect 2 has only been in the public eye for a few months - hopefully it won't end up in a similar purgatorial state.