When I originally reviewed Escape Academy, the only negative mention I had for it was that I was hoping to have even harder challenges to solve. It looks like Coin Crew Games took that personally because they developed a DLC that definitely checks off the challenging side of things! Whether this is just the first of many new challenges to come or if they plan on sending players in for a second year of schooling at the academy, the Escape From Anti-Escape Island DLC is a great addition they had iam8bit and Skybound Games publish.

Story

After surviving your first year at Escape Academy, it’s time to relax with a well-earned summer vacation, hosted and provided by the academy administration. Disaster strikes when the Escape Jet is shot down over an uncharted island! Worse yet, relaxation turns to mayhem as you begin to find yourself solving your way into the oddities that will reveal themselves to be a new threat you must overcome.

Gameplay

Just like in the base game, you will be thrown into scenarios where you have to solve your way out of them. Starting with escaping from the crashing plane and leading all the way to a climactic ending, there will be a number of different puzzles to solve in order to progress through the story. They do a good job at giving a decent story to follow and putting you in the role of a rogue puzzle-solving hero too.

All the controls and escape room thinking style come together again in this DLC, but the starting challenge rating is a 3 out of 5 keys. By the time you reach the third level in this new DLC, you will begin to see how challenging it gets and I particularly enjoyed solving levels three and five the most.

Essentially, you will have to use your wits to figure out how to do just about anything in this DLC just as you do in the game. Seeing how the DLC takes place after the game, you will have experience before attempting these new levels. Look for clues, understand your cues, attempt your best guess, and use your hints if you need to - but the best grades are given to those who are quick to solve puzzles and don’t need to use any hints.

If it helps, keep in mind a general understanding when solving escape rooms: Nothing is in there on accident, but watch out for misdirections and distractions.

Verdict

Escape Academy got nothing short of an improved experience with the addition of the Escape From Anti-Escape Island DLC! Maintaining the same quality of visuals, sounds, and level design while increasing the difficulty of the puzzles that needed to be solved is exactly what I thought this game needed when I originally reviewed it. This first DLC pack adds roughly two hours of gameplay to the game and it is full of thought-provoking moments to overcome. If you own the base game or are looking into getting it still, then make sure to tack on this DLC because it makes the game even more worthwhile!

Escape Academy is now available on PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. The Escape From Anti-Escape Island DLC will launch on all platforms on November 10th for $9.99 USD and it will be part of the Season Pass which is available for $14.99 USD.