After more than a year spent bribing guards, climbing walls, shivving rivals, and digging a tunnel with a sharpened spoon, Back to the Dawn hit version 1.0 this month. If you’re not familiar, it’s a time-management RPG where you have 21 days to escape a high-security prison and can spend your time inside getting to know other inmates, building your stats, and finally finding one of multiple escape routes to break free.
Also, everyone’s an anthropomorphic animal. One of the changes in the full release is that now you can play as Bob, a panther detective with a mission to complete in prison. Your other choice is Thomas, a fox reporter who was framed while investigating corruption in the Mayor’s office, and was the only option during early access.
As well as multiple escape routes to uncover, the setting of Boulderton Prison includes more than 100 quests, three gang factions you might try to side with, and 48 NPC inmates. If one of those inmates isn’t someone Bob the undercover panther put away who recognizes him and threatens to blow his cover, I’ll be very surprised.
Prison escapes have made for several great movies and TV shows, but I can only think of a couple of games entirely themed around them—The Escapists and A Way Out. I guess there is usually a prison level in stealth games (Dishonored starts with one), but as the basis for an entire game it seems rarer. But then I haven’t played The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.
Back to the Dawn is available on Steam, with a 15% launch discount until the end of the month.