At Summer Game Fest 2025, we had a pile of “unannounced” appointments, which can be a gamble. Luckily, one of mine ended up being Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School, and the franchise has been a lot of fun so far, so I was excited to check out the latest version. I first played the original Escape Academy at Summer Game Fest 2022, so I felt good keeping the tradition alive.
I was originally paired with a stranger, which can make co-op puzzles a challenge, but they didn’t show up. So instead, I got to play a solid 30 minutes of Escape Academy 2 with none other than CGM’s own editor-in-chief, Brendan Frye. We sat down with an early section of the game, armed with a pen and paper, and proceeded to bicker publicly for the entire appointment—not much has changed.
Jumping into the first room, we were tasked with finding the names of the school’s founders in order to escape. Between searching walls, drawers and boxes for clues, there were combination locks, an overhead projector—I haven’t seen one of those since high school—and a machine to input the names as you found them. It was a pretty standard escape room, although Escape Academy 2 has added jumping, which was an exciting surprise.
“Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School is entirely open world, bringing a whole new sense of adventure to the franchise.”
There were a few small quality-of-life issues, like not being able to move between one of the desks and the teacher’s desk, and tons of objects in the room that had nothing to do with the puzzles. Of course, that’s for misdirection, but I think I clicked the same apple water bottle about 20 times while examining the desks. A few clues might still need more of a hint during development, but these could become clearer as you play, since we were only given a small slice of the game to try.
Normally, I would say, “Why not add new levels instead of a new game,” especially since Escape Academy isn’t a particularly old game. However, Coin Crew Games has completely overhauled the entire map, and Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School is entirely open world, bringing a whole new sense of adventure to the franchise. If you’re like me, you’ll have no idea what an open-world escape room looks like. Luckily, I am here to tell you!
Basically, it’s like trying to go from Point A to Point B in your house as a busy mom with a pile of kids. You can’t just walk across the house. First, you need to find someone’s missing sock, unlock three doors, grab a snack and complete a pile of other tasks before actually finishing the one at hand. More specifically, before we could go to the headmaster’s office, we needed to find our locker (which required a puzzle), make our way to the bookstore (which required several puzzles), and buy our books (which, of course, required another puzzle). I think you get the point.
“For someone who loves a slow burn or really enjoys puzzles, Escape Academy 2 will definitely scratch that itch.”
For someone who loves a slow burn or really enjoys puzzles, Escape Academy 2 will definitely scratch that itch. Everything poses a challenge—and that was just getting from the original room to the office. Once we got there, some familiar characters showed up, along with a few new ones. The game features a brand new story and an explorable campus, so the amount of content in this new version should be plentiful. We were also stopped by some side quests that, for time’s sake, we skipped over—but that just means there’s even more content for players to look forward to.
Brendan and I played couch co-op, obviously, but the game will also feature online co-op. Coin Crew Games and publisher iam8bit have done everything they can with Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School to bring fresh new content, innovate on the original, and ensure that accessing the game with friends is as easy as possible. There is no release date set, but I can’t wait to head back to school (honestly, not having a September release date—even in 2026—would seem like a huge miss here!)
