While we were at the E3 Mix in Los Angeles, we got the chance to talk to Team 17's Kevin Carthew about The Escapists 2, and during our discussion we talked about whether the game had been made more accessible after the first one was so challenging, and Carthew said this was definitely the case.
"Sure, and we have absolutely done that," he said. "I mean there are several things about the original game [...] some of the things in the original game, we never wanted to take the challenge out of the game, but there are a couple of areas where I think that the game was a little bit unforgiving, at times felt a little bit unfair. We've contextualised all the things that happen in the game now, so for example in the first game we used to see these like dialogue boxes pop up, and there were certain ways that the game didn't want you to play, rather than kind of like rationalise that in terms of the game's mechanics and the player's interaction with the other NPCs in the prison, sometimes we'd just pop up a dialogue box and say "oh, no, you can't steal a key, that's not how we want you to play it, that's not permitted within the rules"."
"We've got rid of all that, for example. You could absolutely steal a key now, you can keep hold of the key. If a guard catches you with it, or a sniffer dog catches you with it, you'll understand the reasons why you're being busted. Sometimes in the previous game there were certain edge cases, certain situations where you wouldn't have known ahead of time, you know, you kind of just had to find out through trial and error. We've removed all that from this game. At the same time, in the first game, to figure out crafting recipes, for example, you had to either again go through a process of trial and error or you had to look up FAQs, figure these things out for yourself or look them up online. We were thinking "well if people are just going to go online to look at it, why isn't that information in the game?". So all the information's in the game now. The game absolutely still represents a huge challenge to the player, but at the same time I'm hoping it's a little bit more accessible for players. Well, in fact, I know it's a lot more accessible for players because we've done a lot of testing, and I think we've proven it as much."
Do these changes sound like steps in the right direction for the sequel?