Prison Architect 2 delayed to May 7 [Update: Delayed again to September 3]

Publisher Paradox Interactive and developer Double Eleven have delayed prison management simulator Prison Architect 2 from its perviously planned March 26 release date to May 7. It will be available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam for $39.99 / £34.99 / €39.99.

Here is the full message from the development team on the delay:

Hello Architects,

After careful consideration, we have made the decision to delay the release of Prison Architect 2 to May 7, 2024. While we are already confident in the game, this extra time will enable us to fix more bugs and further optimize the game for all platforms. Although sticking to the original launch date was an option, we feel that taking this additional time is necessary to ensure that we offer you a smoother experience from day one.

We also want to show you how the development of the game is going in these final stages, which is why we’ll be starting streams up in March to go alongside our Prison Architect Academy series. Stay tuned to find out the dates and times for these.

We would love to build the future of Prison Architect 2 and its community together with you. Please keep giving us suggestions and feedback, let’s go on this journey together!

You can send us your suggestions and vote for things already suggested on our forum.

The Prison Architect 2 Team

Update 04/19/24: Prison Architect 2 has been delayed once again, from May 7 to September 13.

Get the full message below.

Hello Architects,

We have made the hard decision of delaying Prison Architect 2 from May 7 to September 3.

While we currently have builds certified on all platforms and are ready to release, some issues regarding memory usage and minimum specification configurations experiencing more failures have emerged. Considering the legacy of Prison Architect, and you—our passionate community, we want to ship the best possible sequel to such a beloved game, without cutting corners to do so.

With the release date getting closer, we carried out further testing on the final build using multiple configurations to verify its stability. These tests result in a MTBF (mean time between failure) report, the method used to get this result is playing the game until a failure arises. A failure can mean a variety of things, for example, a crash, freeze, or other play-halting issues. In this report, we noticed that on specific configurations the game was not hitting our MTBF target, with this being particularly true for minimum specs configurations.

Once the issues were identified, we started working on improving Prison Architect 2‘s memory usage to mitigate the situation. Overall, the work has been successful, and we have reached a satisfactory level of performance on lower specs. Unfortunately, with such a rework some new technical challenges emerged, as the number of crashes increased noticeably.

In light of the memory usage issue, and minimum spec configuration failures, we therefore made the decision to postpone the game. This extra development time will make sure we can:

• Raise the MTBF to make sure the game is more stable.
• This includes focusing on resolving crashes, freezes, and other play-halting issues.
• Share more of the development with you, our players, through streams and additional developer diaries.
• Put more time into further developing some of the existing features that we know can be improved.

We’ll be telling you more about this in an upcoming stream on the April 25 at 7:30 a.m. PT / 10:30 a.m. ET / 16:30 CEST.

Additionally, console players will receive an automated refund—as per platform policy. Pre-orders will still be available, but you will need to purchase the game again to secure the pre-order bonus. Steam players who wish to refund their game can use the refund option via customer support.
We know this is a long wait but we’ll be with you all the way to release and we know this will give you a better game experience in the end.

The Prison Architect 2 Team