The player needs to recruit specific staff to unlock some aspects of the game, e.g., information about the prison's finances is unavailable without an accountant.

The player is able to implement various reform and labour programmes that reduce the specific prisoner's recidivism rate.

Each corresponds to a different temperament and length of sentence, with, on intake, the higher security levels with more difficult reputations and more severe crimes but also awarding extra cashflow.

There are also options for 'creative mode' available on prison creation where, finance can be ignored, research is fully unlocked, and building is instant, among other changes.

Unfortunately, active development was ended with the Sunset update on May 16, 2023 due to the announcement of the sequel, Prison Architect 2.

[14][15] In Introversion's alpha 30 video,[16] they confirmed Prison Architect was coming to iOS and Android in October 2015 with the game's official release.

The developers posted a tweet on March 21, 2013, that "I guess Prison Architect won't be coming to iPad then!

[19] The effort to bring Prison Architect to mobile devices was resumed by Paradox Interactive as the publisher and co-developed with Tag Games.

Additionally some items were not included in the console editions such as the Bathroom Sink[23] (a decorative object used to improve a prison cell's hygiene rating).

On June 6, 2017, Double Eleven released a trailer for an expansion pack to the game, named Psych Ward, on their YouTube channel.

[37] IGN awarded it a score of 8.3 out of 10, saying "Prison Architect is one of the most in-depth, satisfying builder games in ages, if you can get past the initiation.

[44] Prison Architect was also nominated for the 2016 BAFTA award in the British Game category, which was won by Batman: Arkham Knight.

[45] By the end of August 2016 when the final version '2.0' of Prison Architect was released, the number of individual players was given as two million.