The Escapists 2 announced, adds multiplayer and more detailed sprites

I watched the PS4 announcement trailer and saw no mention of the PC or Xbox, but thankfully a hidden version, unearthed by Reddit, set things right. The Escapists 2 is coming to PC (via Steam) and consoles in 2017, and brings multiplayer to Mouldy Toof's sandbox prison escape game. It also brings more detailed sprites and tiles, more ways to escape, more things to craft out of old toothbrushes and belly button fluff, a revised battle system, and lots of other stuff featured in the following video.

The Escapists 2 looks impressively far along, considering the original isn't that old, and that it's been supported by an avalanche of DLC and spin-offs, including an official Walking Dead tie-in.

The big new feature here is the multiplayer, I reckon, which adds online (and split-screen!) co-op and competitive shenanigans to the series.

There's no firm date yet, so you'll just have to mark every day in 2017 into next year's diary, just to be sure.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.