Players can do favours for fellow inmates, once the favour is completed the player is rewarded a certain amount of money based on the inmate's opinion of the player. Players can acquire various items to aid in their escape by buying or stealing them from other inmates, or by crafting them by combining two or three items, such as toothpaste and talcum powder which crafts putty that a key can be imprinted then moulded with.

Once the names are selected the game starts from day 1 waking up in the player character's cell. In the beginning, the player selects their name and can choose the names of prisoners and guards if desired. There are additional prisons released as downloadable content (DLC) which can be played in any order regardless of the player's progress. Each time a prison is escaped the next prison is unlocked. In The Escapists, the player, who assumes the role of a prisoner, must escape from six primary prisons ranging from very easy to very hard. A sequel, The Escapists 2, was released in 2017. Reviewers praised the freedom of approach the game offered players, yet some were frustrated by the trial-and-error approach required to learn its systems. Players assume the role of an inmate and must escape from prisons of increasing difficulty. The game was launched on the Epic Games Store on 23 September 2021, with the weekly free game campaign of Epic Games. A Nintendo Switch version of the game containing all downloadable content was released in 2018. It was released on iOS and Android in 2017.

The game was developed by Mouldy Toof Studios and following a Steam Early Access release in 2014, was released in 2015 for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The Escapists is a strategy game played from a top-down perspective.

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