Stumbling upon the original Escape Academy well after launch was almost life-changing. My partner and I love escape rooms and adjacent puzzles, and this scratched that itch in video game form. Needless to say, we had our pencils sharpened, notebooks ready, and brains engaged for Escape Academy 2: Back to School.
The puzzles are simply better and feel more varied. You’re encouraged to scour the environment more than ever, pay attention to every detail, and read the room, literally at times. Solving brainteasers is as joyous as ever, which is why the game’s painful shortcomings feel like detention at times.
The Escape Room Boom Continues to Explode
Escape Academy is the Hogwarts of the escapology world. Students train to free themselves from perilous situations and use all manner of lateral and logical thinking to do so. Like its predecessor, you play as a student (students in co-op) considered the golden child of escape rooms.
The sequel retains the OG’s outlandish and over-the-top charm in its storytelling. I love Escape Academy’s desire to make the story feel just as much a part of the game as the puzzles, and with plenty of returning faces and near-death scenarios—seriously, who’s doing the health and safety checks at this place?—it’s a nice break between the timed puzzle rooms. There are more puns than puzzles (of which there are a lot of puzzles), and I laughed at many of them—sue me.
Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School features many escape room scenarios, sometimes spread across multiple rooms and challenges. You must find clues, add numbers up, decipher patterns, and enter codes to unlock countless padlocks and eventually secure your exit before the timer runs out.
The game’s very accessible, offering two different difficulty modes—one with no timer and a relaxed atmosphere, and the other the recommended, stress-inducing race against the clock. You can play solo, or in co-op, but I HIGHLY recommend playing this with someone. Firstly, it’s just more fun. There’s a beautiful harmony as you both stare at a clue or puzzle like two clueless chimps trying to figure out how to peel a banana.
Secondly, there’s zero benefit to playing solo. I had a quick go on my own and found that the timer stays the same; if anything, you’re at a weird disadvantage for not having a playing partner. The puzzles, however, are sensational. Entertaining a chicken, trying to leave a room before a spiked ceiling crushes you, ascending a clocktower using moon-based conundrums: There’s so much variety. I found that many notes and other environmental objects that would have been rendered pointless in the first game are quintessential to the puzzle experience this time.
An Open Affair That Does Its Best To Close You Out
The biggest change this time is the switch to an open-world design. You still have self-contained, set-piece escape rooms, but Escape Academy 2 now lets you roam the entire school grounds! Different areas are unlocked once you’ve completed a certain number of puzzles, and there are mini side-quest puzzles to earn you money, which is used to buy supplies and unlock fast travel (ish) ziplines around the school. They’re brilliant bite-sized affairs and riddles that can leave you as flummoxed as any other ‘main’ quandary the game poses.
Money and Red Herrings are hidden throughout the school, some of which you’ll really have to get your Indiana Jones hat on to explore and find. There are other one-off puzzles, and I generally loved navigating the place and talking to the other students and teachers to see what amusing dialogue they had.
I spoke with one of the devs at Summer Game Fest 2026 who said that exploring the school was one of the most-requested pieces of feedback. It’s implemented…but not well.
I’ve been told that known bugs are being addressed, and while I’m usually quite tolerant of review-build technical issues, knowing a day-one patch is standard for most games now, Escape Academy 2’s failings nearly ruined the experience for my partner and me.
The performance and frame rate are shocking. Again, I tested this in both solo and co-op play on PS5, and while it’s generally fine in the school, once you go outside, the game really struggles. I encountered the same issues at Summer Game Fest, and it’s no different here, which leads me to believe it will be like this after launch. The lag and slowdown are frequent, and it literally freezes the game for several seconds at a time, fully breaking the immersion.
Other design choices further soured our enjoyment, too. Some NPCs will walk into you like a wall, pushing you away from conversations and places you’re trying to reach; tannoy announcements and certain lines of dialogue are ear-poppingly loud for no reason, and while orienting across campus is entertaining, the game isn’t pretty to look at; it’s quite ugly, to be honest, outside of the cutscenes.
A collectible, which was visible until I got to it, disappeared altogether, leaving me unable to grab it. I was also frequently left with a sore thumb, as there’s no click-to-sprint option, forcing you to hold the stick in. When you have a lot of traveling to do, not helped by a cumbersome fast travel system, I was starting to wish it had kept to the first game’s formula.
Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School Review Verdict
The devs don’t need to pull a Houdini act to resolve many of Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School’s issues, but in its review state, a game I was desperately looking forward to had no middle ground: I loved it and hated it. The escape rooms, puzzles, ludicrous lore, and the welcome addition of collectibles and side missions push the series to new heights.
It’s just a shame that its ascent sees its wings unceremoniously clipped by a resistant force of horrid technical issues. If you can get past this, then the game is a panicked problem-solving paradise that makes you feel accomplished.
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For more Insider Gaming reviews, check out the following:
- Hellraiser: Revival Review
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Campaign Review
- Phantom Blade Zero Review
- Valor Mortis Review
- Silver Pines Review
Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School
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Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School
Andy is Insider Gaming's Senior Evergreen Editor and has been in the games journalism sphere in one way or another for over 7 years. His video game taste is as…
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