Free For All
The Escapists Multiplayer would have to change a few essential mechanics in order to work.
Limited resources, limited escape routes and only a small window of time to escape the prison, free for all breaks down all the barriers. The Escapists already has a combat system and a variety of crafting recipes for the players to use in order to create their escape plan. Multiplayer can involve all these aspects, but the goal would be to escape at all costs. You can support each other or completely sabotage each others plans discretely, the possibilities are endless.
Free for all can open up more opportunities for interaction, such as trading and sharing resources. You may be trying to escape first, but some situations require some team work in order to progress successfully. Whether you trust another prisoner is your decision, and it can work positively and negatively depending on who you’re playing with. An interesting concept would be to drop multiple players into a prison, each unaware of who is another real player, and trying to be discrete to rat out those who are escaping and take advantage of different opportunities.
This game mode can lead to a lot of intense and hilarious situations, such as leaving your fellow prisoner stranded outside stripped clean whilst you take their items and escape. The difficulty of the different prisons can also change these situations significantly, making items and tools rarer to attain. The other AI prisoners also add to a game mode that has a lot of potential, but would lead to a lot of griefing throughout the map.
Mouldy Toof would have to create some sort of punishment for sabotage so the game mechanics would have to be modified for it to work.
Overall, The Escapists has a lot of potential to have a multiplayer option, but several aspects would have to changed in order to support it. Although nothing has been confirmed for later updates, the developers are continuing to consider the idea to have multiplayer in the game.
