Prison Architect 2 will support mods with a built-in editor on PC

Prison Architect 2 was announced earlier this evening and will switch the carceral management sim to 3D when it releases on March 26th.

It'll also have robust mod support, with "a mod editor built-in for PC players", according to game director Gaz Wright.

"[Mod support will be] built into the game for the first time," Wright told Katharine at Gamescom last year. "Prison Architect 1 was really, really big for the modding community, and we've worked very closely with some of the top modders and asked them to become ambassadors for the game. They've been telling us about the different tools and support they want and how mod-able they want the game to be, and what they want us [to do] is allow the code to be exposed to them to make modding easy for them.

"For the first time in Prison Architect, there's a mod editor built-in for PC players, so even people who aren't experienced with modding will be able to create their own characters, create their own items and models, and room types," said Wright. "It just shows that dedication to modding. It's not just, 'we're adding them in some DLC, here you go'. We're supporting the modding community and the ability to create stuff themselves."

Although it's not strictly relevant to PC, Prison Architect 2 will also allow console players to play mods for the first time. "Not the editor, but they can see and get mods that are created from the PC modding community. In Prison Architect 1, I think they felt a bit left out, as there were so many cool mods on PC. So we've fixed that and really improved that."

Although Wright didn't say so, this probably means Prison Architect 2 won't distribute mods via Steam Workshop as the original did. Paradox have recently launched their own mod sharing platform, Paradox Mods, which is used to share mods in games like Crusader Kings 3, and will eventually be used to support multi-platform mods in Cities: Skylines 2. It seems reasonable to assume Prison Architect 2 will follow suit.

Paradox and Double Eleven's stewardship of Prison Architect after buying the IP from original creators Introversion was questionable, mostly due to an abundance of ill-fitting DLC, but it remains one of the best management games. Introversion, meanwhile, are now working on spaceship construction and management game The Last Starship, which is currently in early access.