Introversion Software announced today that their wildly successful prison building game will find its way to next gen consoles and the Xbox 360 this spring, and will contain some features unique to the console versions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qc5nHlZOnA The game, which stands as a shining example of what Steam's Early Access program can do for small developers and their fans, was until this year only available on PC platforms and was fully released last year. Now all of the moral dilemmas and budget problems that come with building, managing and maintaining a prison can now be your problems on one of three consoles of your choosing. If you're not familiar with this game, Introversion Software co-founder Mark Morris has this to say in the announcement on the official Playstation Blog:
Prison Architect allows you to act as both architect and governor. You control every detail of your Prison — from building new cells and facilities to hiring staff and creating reform programs… all while dealing with informants, contraband smuggling, gang warfare, full scale riots, and a lot more!
The game is a compelling mixture of micromanaging your prison's facilities, and ensuring that the inmates and your staff are treated fairly, and deal with riots and fires as you try your damnest to knock some sense manners into the newly convicted . You can share your prison creations with the rest of the community, and it's even possible to try and escape from another player-built prison as an inmate.
One of the console specific features is called the Prison Warder Mode, which allows you to jump into a pre-built prison so you can skip the initial construction phase and go straight to the managing of the facility. The console edition will also have a World of Wardens feature where you can upload your prisons so other players can play them, or you can grab another player's creation to tinker with.
Introversion Software is teaming up with Double Eleven (who previously worked on bringing titles like Limbo, Frozen Synapse and Goat Simulator to consoles), which are going to add specific features to each version of the game to allow players to take full advantage of every system's unique features, as well as accommodate for the controller each system has. You can check out the console edition page that Double Eleven has set up to keep up with all the information.
The exact release date of the game is as of yet unknown, but we do know the price! The cost of acting out your wildest inmate/warden fantasies on consoles will be $29.99. Whether this price will include a nightstick and a night in solitary confinement remains to be seen.
Prison Architect released its 1.0 version in October of last year, has been in development for 5 years and has managed to move 1.5 million units since it went into the early access program.
