Over the last several months, publisher Paradox Interactive has had several projects either delayed or outright cancelled. First, the team shut down Life by You, its long-in-development competitor to The Sims. Then, the team announced that Cities: Skylines 2‘s console release has been indefinitely delayed. During that same time, Paradox has delayed Prison Architect 2 twice, with the most recent delay announced in April. However, Prison Architect 2 was seemingly on track for a September 4th release date on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC platforms. Sadly, Paradox Interactive recently announced that Prison Architect 2 has been delayed indefinitely.
In the blog post about the delay, Paradox says, “We need more time to improve both the game’s performance and its content. Our continuous internal reviews and beta test groups have highlighted areas that we need to focus on more, mainly performance and content, which we need to address before launch to ensure that you, the players, get a good experience in the game.”
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Generally, seeing a publisher give its team extra time for a troubled project is a good thing. Those delays can often be the difference between a project shipping in a broken state or coming out of the gate with momentum. Paradox even says, “We are confident that the sequel to Prison Architect will be great, and we’re looking forward to showing you all the new ideas brought into it: the switch to 3D, multi-floors, and the new behavior systems that all bring a new dimension to the game and open up new gameplay possibilities for the players.” However, the team said similar things about Life by You, and the studio behind that project was closed down soon after. That doesn’t mean fans of Prison Architect need to be overly concerned, but this has become a worrying trend for Paradox Interactive over the last several months.
It’s also worth noting that, because this delay is indefinite, Paradox is issuing refunds for preorders on all platforms. The team is also taking the preorder bonus items and adding them to the base package, meaning you won’t get anything extra if you decide to preorder. Hopefully, the next time we hear from Paradox Interactive about Prison Architect 2, we’ll get a release date the team can stick to. For now, fans will have to wait patiently and hope this project has a better ending than Life by You.
