Best Prison Architect Mods You Need to Play With

Here are some of the Best Prison Architect Mods to help make your gameplay experience absolutely memorable and way more fun. These are must-have mods for your Prison Architect playthrough.

Best Prison Architect Mods (Must Have Prison Architect Mods)

Dispatch Mod

Have you noticed that there is never anyone around who works for you in Prison Architect when you need them most? A riot is breaking out, there are escapes happening, prisoners are dying, and literally no prison employees are in the area. Searching for someone to help out can often be an arduous process, but that is no longer the case with the Dispatch Mod.

The Dispatch Mod allows you to summon the necessary individuals to a designated location. Need a doctor? Hit the Doctor Dispatch button and one will come rushing to a prisoner or guard in need even if they’re far away. You can even summon nearby guards or large groups of guards that will come from all areas of your prison.

Gone are the days of painstakingly seeking out the guards who serve you, now it all happens at the click of a button. This should leave you more time to focus on more important endeavors, such as getting more inmates.

Cramp Up the Rooms

If you have always wanted to cramp up your prison, this mod is for you. With it, you’re able to make rooms at much smaller sizes than the original designations for them. This means that cells can be built at 2×2 now, holding cells at 2×4, yards at 2×2, and other crazy new dimensions. No repercussions! Except, you know, maybe everyone will feel absolutely claustrophobic.

Pump Away That Water

With the polder pump mod, you can get rid of the water on your prison’s map. Let’s say you’ve been working on a prison for a while. Let’s say that map also happens to have a massive lake in the middle of it. If you’re sick of said lake and don’t want to start over, simply install this mod and it’ll be gone in five minutes.

More Quick Build Options

The quick build menu is very useful when you just want to lay out a prison and don’t want to take the extra time to plan how each room will look. Thus, it’s a shame you can’t simply quickly build every kind of room in the base game. This mod seeks to help us with that by allowing more quick build options like cell blocks, staffrooms, libraries, and much more.

Make Your Prison Pretty

It’s so dull, staring at the prisons in Prison Architect. Look, just because all the criminals are incarcerated for heinous crimes doesn’t mean your eyes need to be sore. With this mod, you’ll be able to plant pretty trees, bushes, and flowers around the prison. Finally, you’ll have more than just plain trees and overgrown grass to look at. There are also a variety of other mods that help make gardens a possibility for you, so go nuts in your search.

More Emergency Help

This mod increases how many ambulances, firefighters, and riot police you can call in. It doesn’t increase it by much, but if you find that even with the extra help, disasters aren’t being stopped, you may want to consider installing it to salvage your Prison Architect prison.

Hotline Miami

Do you know what Prison Architect needs? More neon. I understand that these individuals are doing time for heinous crimes, and it’s your job to keep them in line. But who says you can’t throw a bit of Miami flavor into the equation? That’s where the Hotline Miami mod comes in.

Watch as your drab facilities get hit with a burst of light and color as your prison becomes a roaring disco tech of style. Don’t worry though, this won’t turn everyone into hyper-violent killing machines (unless you’re horrible at preventing and crushing riots), it’s just for the visual effect.

Enjoy the masks as inmates are brought in, and watch as your prison runs with efficiency and style.

Better Power Stations

While the modder of this power station mod warns that you will want to start a new prison when you install this mod, it seems highly useful. It allows you to build a bigger, more powerful power station, which of course means more of your prison will be lit up with it alone.

Solar Power

And, let’s say you’re sick of Power Stations. Well, this mod is for you! With it, you can implement solar power stations around the outside of your prison to generate electricity from the sun! Ah, clean, renewable energy. Keep in mind, though, that it will mean more solar power stations than just one, regular power station.

Add Some Color to Your Doors

With this mod, you’re able to change the color of the doors around your prison (any doors). You can upgrade and downgrade them as you please, too. Your workers will take care of that. Unfortunately, the wall coloring mod has been deprecated, but no doubt some other modder will come in and make wall painting a reality.

South Park Overhaul

Perhaps the cool neon lights and colorful mask of Hotline Miami just weren’t enough for you in Prison Architect. You need something more, something that maybe comes from a weird town in the Colorado mountains. If that sounds like something you’d be into, then you better go download the South Park Overhaul mod.

This mod changes all characters in the game to a South Park counterpart. You’ll have Cartman guards, Mr. Mackey as a psychologist, and more. The best part is that the creator is planning on adding even more hilarious cameos to the already impressive list.

So if you’re tired of looking at the same old round prisoners, fill up your prison with some hilarious inhabitants from the good clean town of South Park.

More Needs

Modders agree that more of a challenge is a good thing. Thus, many have taken to expand upon the needs of prisoners within the base game. Install this mod to add two new needs: fresh air and time alone.

Consuela the Janitor

This one may not be as extensive as the previous entries on the list, but Consuela the Janitor for Prison Architect is absolutely hilarious to look at. Her bright pink dress, white apron, and stern stance against absolutely everything is perfect for the prison environment.

Does an inmate want to go move some contraband? No, no, no. A guard trying to take an early break? No, no, no. She could probably run the prison herself because her word is final in all situations.

(Disclaimer: Consuela cannot in fact run the prison on her own because she is just a janitor. But wouldn’t it be hilarious?)

Better Clock Mod

This mod is perfect for impatient players. Want to skip right to the action? Install the Better Clock Mod and have the ability to speed up time 7 and 10 times faster than usual. Perfect for those late-night hours when there’s absolutely nothing for you to do.

Remove Those Dead Bodies

If you’ve just had a catastrophic riot, then you might have a lot of corpses in your morgue. While those generally get cleaned up quickly, if there’s an excess of them and you need extra help, this mod is here for you. With it, you’re able to call upon a paramedic and hearses.

Laundry Outsourcing

If you like the idea of your prisoners feeling clean in their outfits, but don’t want to set up a laundry room for them to get to work, then you can simply install this mod! With it, you’ll outsource the laundry services for a fee outside of your prison in order to get fresh new clothes delivered each day.

Blast Door

One of the worst things that can happen in Prison Architect is a huge riot. Inmates go crazy, fights break out, people are killed, and prisoners begin to escape. You can lock down the prison, but a determined inmate will get through even the toughest doors if provided enough time. Sometimes you need something a whole lot sturdier to hold in some of the toughest denizens of your facilities. This is where the BlastDoor mod comes in.

Enjoy stronger security as you seal everyone behind large, almost unbreakable, steel doors. Of course, this isn’t for free, they are more expensive to produce, and slower to build/repair, but they are much harder to destroy so having the option is definitely worth it.

Computers and More Mod

When playing Prison Architect you’re doing more than just building a prison. You are also the warden and are in charge of meeting all of your inmates’ needs. Two of these needs are family and recreation. These can be filled in a number of ways that take up a lot of space. But you can relieve a lot of the pressure on yourself by providing a one-stop shop to fulfill both of these vital needs. To do so all you need is the Computers and More Mod.

The computers allow inmates to correspond with family through the internet as well as some good old-fashioned computer entertainment. The mod says “computer games” but we aren’t judging. Whatever keeps those adorable little sprites from rioting, right?

Clearer Needs Icons

Prison Architect is many things, and sometimes that thing is an odd Tamagotchi. While the main point of the game is to build a successful prison, you’ll also have to care for the inmates inhabiting said prison. This is often easier said than done thanks to the confusing symbols used to denote their complaints. The Clearer Needs mod makes life a lot easier by making your inmates’ wants very clear.

Simple Garden Mod

Prison Architect can be difficult at times. Having to fulfill the needs of hundreds of inmates while also making sure your staff is keeping on top of things can be tiresome. Sometimes, though, keeping your prisoners relaxed takes nothing more than giving them something to do, something they can become passionate about that doesn’t involve shivving any of their fellow inmates. Something like, I don’t know, gardening? That’s where the Simple Garden Mod comes in.

This mod adds new jobs to your prison, as well as provides new exports so that your prison becomes more profitable. Now you have another way to keep inmates occupied and to line your wallet with extra dough. It’s a win-win.

Total Chaos

Prison Architect has many things going for it. You can design and build some truly impressive prisons, hire tons of staff, and even house, feed, educate, and maintain hundreds of inmates all by making good decisions. The problem is that if you’re really good at the game nothing else really happens. Time just goes on and your prison expands.

But what if you wanted to test your guards? Get them out of the safe monotony you’ve established for them. That’s where the Total Chaos mod comes in.

This mod lets you pour on the mayhem so that huge riots involving tons of inmates are triggered and it’s up to your guards to quell the uproar. You can grant temporary upgrades to your staff to give them a fighting chance, but nothing is guaranteed. This is something that lesser prison architects fear, but you’re no lesser architect, you’re the best damn one alive. Now you just got to prove. Let chaos reign.

Prison Island (Mini)

The Prison Island mod allows you to build a prison on… well, an island. It has only one entry and exit point, meaning it would be pretty useful for Max Security prisons. Do keep in mind, though, that inmates can still escape. This just makes preparation and defense a lot easier.

Extra Starting Money

Money makes the world go round, and it also helps build lavish prisons. A little extra cash in Prison Architect is definitely a good thing, so the Extra Starting Money mod can come in handy. Just build storage and accept the grant to get yourself an extra $70K.

Snitch Sorter

Snitches are useful as they can keep you informed of what’s going on in your facilities. Naturally, due to the nature of the people you’re responsible for, they are also targets. Snitch Sorter automatically sorts informants and ex-cops into protective custody, making it much easier to keep them alive and useful.

Mining Facility Mod

The Mining Facility mod allows you to take it back to the old days. You’ve seen it in movies, prisoners mining coal and other oar as part of their sentences. Now you can provide the same type of therapeutic work to your own inmates.

You can use the ore, coal, and clay you find to create new items that can be sold. New tools and facilities will be made available to help you expand into this new field of work. It adds an entirely new dynamic to the experience, so now you can get everyone out of the gardens and into the mines.

Functional Objects

In Prison Architect, players have access to tons of items that they can place around their prisons. Unfortunately, most of these are strictly there for decoration. Bookshelves, couches, you name it and it’s only there for show. The Functional Objects mod helps to change that.

Now those items that are just there help with the needs of your inmates. For instance, bookshelves help with literacy and spirituality. This will lower your need to manage certain needs so you can focus on building.

Money Laundering Mod Easy Mode

Even with mods that give you free money to start off with, sometimes there’s just never enough. You’ve tried keeping your nose clean and running your prison like a good little warden, but now it’s time for the gloves to come off. You need money, and if you have to break a few dozen laws to get it, then so be it.

The Money Laundering mod allows you to take dirty money and turn it into “legitimate” profit. You can do whatever you want with your ill-gotten gains, allowing you to build the largest prison empire ever seen.

Creature Comforts

So you’ve built the world’s greatest prison. You’re organized, your inmates work hard, your staff loves you, and everything is running smoothly, so why not award the prison with a cute little gift (or several if you really want to)? The Creature Comforts mod places adorable kittens into your world.

They’ll roam about being cute, as cats usually do. It’s nice to add a bit of life to the prison, maybe it will keep your inmates from killing anybody. 

First Aid Station

Riots can get out of hand, and that often leads to your staff, particularly guards, getting seriously injured or even killed. The First Aid Station mod places stations where injured guards can go to be immediately healed back to 75% health. This will keep your security alive and save you a lot of money since you won’t have to hire so many staff members.

Fallout Vault Mod

This mod does exactly what it says on the tin. If you’ve ever wished that your prison would look a little bit more like a vault from Fallout then this is the mod for you. Giving everything that little bit of a Fallout touch-up (including the blue jumpsuits), your prison will look like its had a makeover from Vault-Tec itself.

It also includes two pre-made vaults. The Starter Vaulter is a good start if you want to be “underground”, while the Ready Vault is one that is partially built and will give you a head start on running your very own prison vault.

HUGE Prison, 924 Cells

Have you ever sat there, looking at your prison thinking it just isn’t big enough to contain all of the prisoners that you want? I mean, you want to be the very best prison architect there ever was, yet you can’t build a giant prison to keep everyone contained. Well, thanks to this mod you no longer have to worry about it.

Upping the number of cells you can have to 924, this prison will allow you to live out your dreams of having a prison the size of a small town. Of course, with this many inmates, you can expect plenty of chaos if you don’t keep it all under control, so you better be prepared.

Prison Architect Plus

Possibly one of the most substantial mods to come to the game is Prison Architect Plus. This mod brings a bunch of different features to the game, including one that allows players to have a little more fun destroying things in Escape Mode. The fire department has been nerfed, allowing for easier starting of fires, the perfect catalyst for your chaotic destruction of the prison.

The mod’s creator, Wyxe, has also added a bunch of backstories and names to some of the criminals, as well as turning on most of the contraband. Contraband has been placed in rooms that these items would make sense being in. For example, clipboards can be found in the Reception and Parole rooms. New rooms have been added such as Utilities Closet, Power Room, and Water Room to name a few.

Real-time Basketball

Everyone needs to exercise and one of the best ways to do so when you’re in prison is by playing some basketball. This mod adds to the basketball court, the basketball league, and the training reform program.

The League provides 17 places for your prisoners to exercise on a big basketball court, while the training program offers six on a half-court. And what makes it even better is it all plays out in real-time, meaning you can kick back and watch the game yourself. There are a couple of requirements to getting it all working, but it’s all listed on the mod’s Steam page, here.

Recycling

We’re told on the daily to recycle, so why should your prisoners not do the same? The Recycling mod lets your prisoners dig through the garbage to sort out valuable bits and pieces.

All you’ll have to do is build a Recycle room and add some Recycle desks in there and you can start getting the garbage sorted. Green garbage can then be used as fertilizer in the garden to help make potatoes and cabbage for the Kitchens. You can even export any extra flowers and food too!

Star Wars-Imperial Architect

This one is for all of the Star Wars fans out there who want to give their prison a bit of a sci-fi sprucing up. Imperial Architect allows you to administrate (or escape) the operations of an Imperial Detention Center located on a remote planet. Your prisoners will be the scum of the galaxy and the most evil villains.

If none of the other skin mods that we’ve suggested have tickled your fancy yet, this may be the one you’ve been waiting for. You can check out its Steam page here.

CCTV Camera Arrows

Sometimes the very smallest changes to an item’s design can make them so much easier to use and implement in a game. Well, CCTV Camera Arrows is the mod that does just that to the security cameras in your prison.

All it does is simply place an arrow on the top which shows you which direction the camera will be facing. This now means that you can ensure that the placement of all of your cameras won’t leave any unwanted blind spots. Perfect for building an impenetrable fortress.

Gangs, Support Escape Mod

The most enjoyable prisons to escape from are the most chaotic ones, and this mod provides just that. With three gang leaders, and over 80 gang members, 137 high-risk prisoners, there are a lot of troublemakers ready to let all hell break loose. Of course, the guards have some help, too.

This adds in 35 solitary cells, equips the guards with tasers, and adds plenty of armed guards in just for good measure. With a riot breaking out on most days, this is one of the most enjoyable prisons to break out of.

Let’s Get Takeout

Though it may not sound like the most exciting mod in the world, it can be an incredibly useful mod for keeping those dangerous inmates at bay. Let’s Get Takeout allows you to deliver food to inmates who pose a risk to themselves or others, without them interacting with your guards or other prisoners.

It’s by no means a solution for all of your prisoners, but for those one or two that just can’t seem to stay out of trouble, it’s the perfect way to isolate them that little bit more.

Working Bookshelves

Rounding off our list is another simple but effective mod that helps address the spirituality and literacy needs of prisoners. For quite a while, the bookshelves in Prison Architect were bugged and so were merely cosmetic objects.

The mod simply fixes this and allows prisoners to read religious texts or other books to reduce the aforementioned needs. It’s not a lot, but it might just be enough to stop a riot from breaking out in your prison.

More Grants

Complete all the game’s base grants, you rockstar, you? Well, no problem. Modders in the community are here to make sure your Prison Architect playthrough stays productive. With this mod, you’ll add in 18 extra grants to complete with your wits.

Lazy Prisoners

With the lazy prisoners mod, you won’t have to deal with hyperactive prisoners anymore. Install it and every prisoner will be much more prone to want to relax or sleep. Perfect for an easy time managing the prison, as you’ll just have to deal with having adequate sleeping and resting spots. Feel free to alter your regime!

Shut Those Arcades Up!

Love the arcades in Prison Architect? You’re such a cool warden, allowing your prisoners access to some gaming classics. Too bad they make a tremendously pesky noise all the time. Well, this mod shuts those arcades right up! Bless the community for knowing exactly what the game needs.

Road Sensors

These road sensors act as pressure plates for your roads so that gates will open right up whenever a car is present atop them. On top of cars and trucks, it will also open up for Workmen, Janitors, Gardeners, Cooks, and Snipers. No more will guards need to come over to the gate to manually open them up. Such a time saver!

Get the Military In Here

With this mod, you’re able to send a callout to soldiers in the military to come to your prison. That’s right, if a riot is too crazy for you to handle with even the special police guards you can call in, the army is here for you. They will definitely stop all the criminals in their tracks.

Zombies

Certain modders have taken it upon themselves to make up campaigns for Prison Architect. Mods such as this one exist that increase the single-player campaign a bit and use their creativity to get you to try new things with the game. This one in particular is a zombie outbreak campaign. Neat!

Natural Textures

This mod adds some natural textures to the game so objects placed around have more of a “real world shine” to them. You’ll see the shine off a metal chair, and the cracks in the tile flooring. Cool what modders are able to do, and there are no doubt other versions of texture mods for you to explore.

Full-Fledged Postal Service

While a mail room is available in the base game, this mod expands upon that. It allows you to hire staff to fully work in a postal service room, delivering and mailing letters for the prisoners. Your prisoners will also have new needs to satisfy this new way of communicating with the outside world.

---