Prison Architect 2 has been pushed from its already delayed release date next month all the way back to autumn

It seems that Prison Architect 2 is going method in its approach to launching the 3D sequel to the jailhouse management game, as - like its inmates - it just can’t seem to secure a solid release. Originally due to arrive in March, before being pushed into May, developers Double Eleven have now shunted it all the way back to September.

The almost five-month delay comes just weeks before its expected launch at the start of next month, having originally tunnelled its way into the spotlights in January. The reason for the slide is apparently development troubles stemming from stability tests and memory usage, with publishers Paradox Interactive saying (via Eurogamer) that they had encountered “unexpected issues occurring too often”, particularly on lower-spec rigs.

Despite the game otherwise being pretty much ready to go, according to Paradox, the rework required to fix the memory issues then cascaded into “some new technical challenges” causing a notable leap in crashes on other hardware configurations. By having to address the crashes, the dev team struggled to find the time to implement some final polishes, which this new delay will allow them to do. It sounds like the kind of snowballing fix-one-thing-break-another situation that seems to be commonplace in game dev, with the transparency about the exact technical issues causing the delay refreshing to hear in place of a vague promise of “extra polish”.

It’s also worth mentioning that the news comes shortly after Cities: Skylines 2 - another Paradox-published game - issued refunds amid its developers’ apologies for “rushed” DLC, following its already rocky launch, which may have inspired Paradox to try and avoid pissing off another crowd of hardcore sim fans. In that case, things were so bad that, having already said they wouldn’t offer any DLC until the base game was fixed, the equally messy DLC has now led to a separate vow that no more paid DLC will arrive until next year.

Anyway, Prison Architect 2 will hopefully avoid any such nightmares thanks to this delay. It’ll now be out on September 3rd, bringing fleshed-out visuals, extra-storey buildings and a new behaviour system to juggle alongside the original’s slammer sim. There’ll be a built-in mod editor, too.