Red Dead Escapists

Surrender to a lawman in Red Dead Redemption 2 and you are no longer let out the next morning. You are shipped to Sisika Penitentiary to serve a real sentence, and your own copy of The Escapists 2, running beside the game, is the warden. Its clock, its daily routine and its rules run the prison you are standing in.

Features

Getting sent down

• Commit crimes in free roam as usual. Surrender to a lawman and, after the game's short jail scene, you wake in Sisika's yard.
• Your sentence follows your bounty: 6 hours, plus 1 hour for every $10 on your head, up to 48.
• Whatever money the game's jail took from you is given back. Serving your time clears the bounty.
• Your weapons and belongings are put aside for the sentence and handed back when it ends, even if you close the game in the middle of it.
• Arthur is put in prison clothes and gets his own back on release.

A prison run by The Escapists 2

• The Escapists 2 opens a prison by itself in its own window. No menus, no intro, nothing to press.
• Its time of day is Sisika's time of day.
• Its routine gives your orders: roll call, meals, work, exercise, showers, free time, lights out and lockdown.
• Every inmate and guard it simulates walks the real Sisika yard in Red Dead, doing what the routine says.
• Its heat, shakedowns, solitary and lockdowns all reach you.

Doing your time

• Be where the routine says, or a guard comes for you.
• Work your quota for an hour off your sentence.
• Wash at one of four troughs, eat in the mess, spar in the ring with a partner marked on your map.
• Greet or antagonise anyone in front of you. Inmates may swing first.
• Free time lets you roam the yard; inmates wander, sit, smoke, read and get into fights of their own.
• Nights, lockdowns and solitary are spent in real cells with doors that lock and unlock.
• Red Dead's own witnesses, wanted level and bounty are switched off while you are inside.

Trouble

• Hitting people raises your heat in The Escapists 2.
• Strike a guard, knock a man out, or run your heat to the top, and unarmed guards run you down and wrestle you to the ground.
• Break free and another guard joins the chase, up to four.
• Held down for eight seconds, you go to solitary, and your sentence waits until you are out.
• Stay ahead of them for a minute and a half and they give up.
• Knocking out a man who swung at you first is self-defence and costs nothing.
• Inside the walls nobody shoots unless you kill. Outside the walls they shoot on sight.
• Get far enough away and you have escaped, with a bigger price on your head.

Keys

• E use the marked spot
• G greet, Y antagonise
• F7 start a sentence without being arrested
• F8 debug panel

Good to know

• Story mode only, single player. It does nothing in Red Dead Online.
• Needs Red Dead Redemption 2 version 1.0.1491.50 and The Escapists 2 on Steam. On another Red Dead version the mod does not load.
• On launch The Escapists 2 starts first and opens its prison. Leave it running in its window, and choose Story in Red Dead.
• When you quit Red Dead, The Escapists 2 stays open in its window. Close it yourself.
• The Escapists 2 starts a new prison each time; your own saves there are left alone.
• If you save Red Dead while inside Sisika, keep the mod installed when you load that save, so your belongings are handed back.
• Does not use Script Hook.

Not in this version

• Finding tools and weapons, and planned escapes.
• Prison clothes for John (he keeps his own).
• The game's own jail scene still plays before Sisika takes over.