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Prison Architect: Second Chances expansion gets June release date

Jail isn't all about punishment, as Prison Architect's next expansion, Second Chances, hopes to prove.

Ozzie Mejia

May 21, 2021 11:31 AM

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Prison Architect isn't purely about incarceration and keeping inmates locked up. It's about making sure inmates serve their sentence, while also making sure that they can successfully reintegrate themselves into the populace once they're finished serving their punishment. That will be the main focus of Prison Architect's next expanison, Second Chances, which was announced during Friday's PDXCON Remixed event.

Prison Architect: Second Chances will introduce several new features that are focused on rehabilitating inmates and ensuring that they can become productive members of society after they've served their sentence. This will include non-work programs, like meet-and-greets with civilians, animal therapy programs (you can pet the animals, by the way), and educational programs run by former inmates. These various programs can reduce an inmate's negative traits and increase the potential for good behavior. Speaking of good behavior, Second Chances will allow players to reduce inmate sentences based on their actions. Similarly, released inmates who prove to be recidivists can be sent right back to prison.

Inmates who still have some time left before their release don't have to wait to get back out into the world to start working. Second Chances will allow inmates with existing or earned work credentials to become vendors. Players can turn certain inmates into bakers, restaurant workers, and therapy workers, just to name a few examples. Inmates who earn work credentials over the course of their sentence will have better odds to successfully find work after their release, ensuring that they become good citizens, which will benefit society as a whole.

The team at Double Eleven is basing many of the Second Chances features on real world programs that have been implemented at various correctional facilities. The dev team's goal for Second Chances is a real focus on rehabilitation over punishment.

Prison Architect players won't have to wait very long to jump into Second Chances. The expansion will release on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on June 16. Nintendo Switch owners will be able to pick it up on June 29. The Prison Architect website will have more on today's PDXCON Remixed announcement.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?