On October 11, Paradox Interactive released a new DLC expansion pack for its long-running Prison Architect game. From the same creative team developing the heavily anticipated Victoria 3, this newest expansion pack, titled Undead, comes just in time for Halloween 2022, bringing zombies and survival horror elements to the management sim.
Although a management sim with a dark twist isn’t new — Let’s Build a Zoo just did the same thing — the Undead DLC comes as a fairly big change from the game’s established formula. Despite the simple cartoon art style, Prison Architect has tended to focus on treating the subject of the prison system with a sense of realism and social consciousness. Adding a gameplay element that focuses on zombie invasions is without a doubt a very large tone shift for Prison Architect, and whether it’s a welcome one is somewhat up for debate. Either way, the Undead DLC has surely caught the attention of many players, so here’s a quick rundown of what to expect from it.
Prison Architect: Undead Adds Even More Tension to the Game
At its core, Prison Architect: Undead is still very much a prison management sim. Players work to create and maintain a secure and humane prison, which is a major challenge in and of itself, but now they will also have to juggle the extra task of keeping the guards and inmates from succumbing to a zombie infection. Zombies will mostly spawn in the prison’s graveyard, but living inmates within the prison can randomly catch the infection as well. Of course, the affliction can always be spread by zombie bites.
There are a number of special traps and tools at the player’s disposal to help keep the zombies at bay for as long as possible, such as luring them with bait or walling them off away from the prison’s population. If and when the zombie hoard breaks through those defenses, the player can also arm both the guards and the inmates to fight against them. The player can even call a bounty hunter emergency service to provide trained, equipped bounty hunters as backup in the fight. All these features are also available in the game’s Escape Mode, so players might want to try their hand at safely getting away from the zombie hoard instead of digging in and fighting.
Prison Architect Players Also Received a Free Update
Paradox Interactive also released a free update to all Prison Architect players alongside the paid Undead DLC. This free update, titled Kickstand, has primarily added some quality-of-life updates to the base game.
Three new quickrooms were added — Security, Kennel, and Parole — and players can use these to expand their prisons in new and interesting ways. Another new room type was also added to allow players to separate sections of their prisons into different sectors much more easily than before. Furthermore, specific cameras can now be locked to a monitor instead of constantly cycling through them, providing for stronger security in certain areas. Finally, two new dogs have been added to the potential guard dog roster, Corgis and Siberian Huskies.
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