The Artful Escape
On the eve of his first performance, Francis Vendetti battles with the legacy of a dead folk legend and the cosmic wanderings of his own imagination. In this 2D adventure platformer, Francis, a teenage guitar…
The Artful Escape is an adventure developed by Beethoven & Dinosaur, released 9 September 2021 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. It currently starts at $3.85 at GameBillet. The main story takes about 3.7 hrs to finish.
What The Artful Escape is
The Artful Escape is an adventure game developed by Beethoven & Dinosaur and released in 2021. It was published by Annapurna Interactive. It is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC (Microsoft Windows). It runs on Unreal Engine 4.
The premise, in the publisher's words
On the eve of his first performance, Francis Vendetti battles with the legacy of a dead folk legend and the cosmic wanderings of his own imagination. Francis, a teenage guitar prodigy, sets out on a psychedelic, multidimensional journey to inspire his stage persona.
How it plays
It is played from a side view perspective. Its themes are action and science fiction. It is a single-player game with no multiplayer component. There are 12 achievements to unlock.
How it was received
The Artful Escape holds a critic score of 83 out of 100. That places it above 78% of the 7,525 rated adventure games in our database, which average 72. Games released in 2021 averaged 74, so it scored 9 points above the year average. Player ratings track closely with critics at 83, across 64 votes.
How long it takes, and what that costs
The main story runs about 3.7 hrs. Completing everything takes closer to 5 hrs, roughly 1.4 times the length of the critical path. At its current cheapest price of $3.85, that works out to about $1.04 per hour of the main story, or $0.77 per hour if you finish everything.
What you need to run it
The minimum specification calls for Intel Core i3-540 | AMD FX-4350, 4 GB RAM and Nvidia GeForce GTX 650, 1 GB | AMD Radeon HD 7870, 2 GB. At 4GB of RAM, it will run on essentially any working PC — that is below what a budget laptop ships with today. Install size is roughly 7GB. Both tiers are compared side by side on the requirements page, and you can check your own parts against them without installing anything.
What it costs, and where
The cheapest verified price right now is $3.85 at GameBillet, 81% below its usual price. Across the 8 stores we track, the same game ranges up to $5.00 — a spread of $1.15 for an identical product.
What it launched against
The Artful Escape launched on 9 September 2021, within three weeks of Psychonauts 2, Deathloop, Kena: Bridge of Spirits and Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut. All of them reviewed better. It arrived 1 year into the PlayStation 5's life, so it was built for hardware developers already knew well.
Released around the same time: Psychonauts 2, Deathloop, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut.
Cheats and codes
We have not confirmed any working cheat codes for The Artful Escape yet. Rather than reprint a list we have not tested, this section stays empty until one is verified.
Official trailer
Sourced from the publisher’s YouTube channel. See all 4 videos →
Screenshots
All media
Quick answers
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