2022’s Escape Academy was a fun game focused on a special group of individuals who found themselves surreptitiously drawn to a secret school for escape room puzzle solvers. And, of course, Escape Academy 2: Back to School sends you back to class for further instruction, campus activities and a deeper dive into more point-and-click puzzles.
Since you know where you’re heading this go ‘round, there’s no need for up-front trickery. And no need for exhaustive explanations either. So players are simply dropped into a tram station and told to find their way.
That first unexplained challenge involves finding the cash, destination code and ticket you’ll need to get past the gates and onto the tram to the mysterious school. After all, if you can’t explore, detect and puzzle out how do at least that much, then you probably don’t belong at this specialized institute.
From there (for surely, you mastered that first test with ease), it’s on to more than a dozen different escape room simulators and scores of campus side quests that will challenge you over the next 12 to 15 hours of play. You’ll dive into classic lock-and-key escape room mechanics; academically-themed logic puzzles; science, math and history conundrums; spatial riddles and open-campus scavenger hunts.
The game is more than just puzzles, however. Each of the escape rooms also advances a storyline about some deceptive happenings. The puzzles point to a falsified school history, administrative cover-ups, disappearing students and mind-altering hazards that you must navigate. And solving it all requires exploration of hidden chambers and secret tunnels built beneath the school.
Escape Academy 2: Back to School offers single-player playthrough, as well as local and online co-op play. But it doesn’t require an internet connection for anything but the online co-op.
Like the first entry in this puzzle-solving series, Escape Academy 2 is colorful, and its challenges are very nicely thought through. The mysteries vary in degree of difficulty and can be approached in solo mode or with co-op help.
The puzzles are never too easy, but they never feel impossible, either. The larger escape room puzzles are set up with a timer. But players can easily opt out of that ticking clock and take on the escape room at a casual, no-pressure pace.
There’s a nice balance here that players of all ages can enjoy. The really tough problems might feel a bit frustrating for more inexperienced players, but with concentrated observation (and the ability to interact with all manner of useful objects), solutions aren’t far away.
Escape Academy 2: Back to School also offers a hint system that gives players a push in the right direction without completely spoiling the answer.
There’s nothing truly objectionable in this game. But there are a few elements that parents of younger gamers might want to take note of: The writing relies on some lighthearted jokes and puns, for instance, and some of those can amble into a bit of potty humor. Someone is teasingly warned, “Don’t wet the bunk beds,” for instance.
As mentioned, there are some darker elements in the storyline involving cover-ups and lies. And the game incorporates a “memory gas” in its mix that’s used to wipe students’ memories.
Escape Academy 2 also has some depictions of wine bottles in its background. Some of the timed challenges are connected to threats, such as a spiked ceiling that’s slowly lowered, crushing walls and moving lasers. But a room “fail” doesn’t result in any messy visuals.
Like its predecessor, Escape Academy 2: Back to School is a fun puzzle collection for escape room fans.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
