Build and manage a Maximum Security Prison. As the sun casts it’s early morning rays on a beautiful patch of countryside the clock starts ticking. You’ve got to crack on and build a holding cell to detain the job­ lot of maximum security prisoners that are trundling to your future prison on their yellow bus. As your workmen lay the last brick you don’t have a moment to let them rest as they need to get started on the first proper cell block so you can make room for the next prisoner intake. Once they’ve all got a place to lay their weary heads the fun can really start.

You’ll need a canteen, infirmary and a guard room, oh, and don’t forget to plumb in a toilet, or things will get messy, but what about a workout area? Or solitary confinement cells? Or an execution chamber?

Prison Architect opens with the story of Edward, a man facing the electric chair for committing a crime of passion. This is followed by four additional chapters focusing on different characters and aspects of prison life. From Mafia Dons to power-crazed senators, Prison Architect has them all! To bring these characters to life, Introversion teamed up with award winning professional writer Chris Hastings, producing an enthralling tale of corruption and human misery set against the background of the modern prison industrial complex.

Finished your supermax? Got guard dogs roving every corridor and prisoners eating out of your hand? Now you can live the horror by firing up escape mode and play as a prisoner hell-bent on getting the hell out of dodge.

Dig a tunnel, go for the armoury or start a riot and slip out in the chaos, it’s entirely up to you! Figure out how to escape from your own creation, or hit the random button and load one of the 12,000 prisons created by the steam community.

Paradox Interactive announced the purchase of all rights and assets for the Prison Architect IP.

Paradox will take ownership of Prison Architect on all current and any future platforms, including Windows, MacOS, and Linux PCs, and Switch, Xbox and PlayStation consoles, in addition to their ongoing publishing of Prison Architect: Mobile on iOS and Android tablets. This acquisition also allows Paradox to continue development of Prison Architect going forward, and to explore opportunities with the wider “Architect” IP in the future.

“Ever since our partnership with Introversion in 2017, the Paradox team has felt that Prison Architect is a natural fit for our catalogue,” said Ebba Ljungerud, CEO of Paradox Interactive. “Just as we’ve done for other management-strategy games like Cities: Skylines and Surviving Mars, I believe the considerable player base of Prison Architect will be excited to see where we can take the game next, and we’re eager to explore development of potential new games based off of the ‘Architect’ IP. We promise to exercise good behavior with this cherished title going forward.”

“Prison Architect has been an intensely rewarding project for us,” said Mark Morris, Co-founder of Introversion Software. “Every developer loves seeing their creations come to life, but through Early Access, launch on multiple platforms and over a dozen post-launch content updates, we’ve been building and managing this building-and-management game for nearly a decade. I think we’ve taken Prison Architect just about as far as we can, and we’re all eager to see where a team like Paradox can take it next! This also gives Introversion the chance to work on what we’ve got coming up next -- more on that soon.”

Inspired by Dungeon Keeper, Dwarf Fortress and Theme Hospital and with over 1 million players having spent time inside, Prison Architect is the world’s best lock-­em-­up.

Prison Architect is available on Switch, PS4, Xbox One and PC.