ESCAPE ACADEMY
Developer Coin Crew Games Publisher Skybound Games, Iam8bit Format PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series Release Summer 2022
If Street Fighter 6’s presence at Play Days is a source of poorly disguised rivalries between journalists, then Escape Academy delivers the exact opposite experience, bonding us to a stranger in the space of 20 minutes. Escape-room-influenced cooperative puzzle games aren’t so rare nowadays, but this one has an added touch of authenticity – developer Coin Crew’s background is in making the real thing, before the pandemic forced it to pivot. And the challenges here really do feel like the kind you’d encounter in the better class of Hungarian basement (Budapest being the escape-room capital of the world, you understand). And so two people who hadn’t spoken a word beforehand are forced to develop a puzzle-solving shorthand on the fly. Such are the joys of local multiplayer. After the past couple of years, we’d almost forgotten.