A Way Out

A Way Out is an action-adventure game developed by Hazelight Studios and published by Electronic Arts under their EA Originals program. It is the second video game to be directed by Josef Fares after Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 23, 2018.

Plot
In 1972, Vincent Moretti is freshly incarcerated and sent to prison for fraud and murder. In jail, he meets Leo Caruso, who has now been inside for 6 months for grand theft, assault and armed robbery. While in the cafeteria, a thug sent in by crime boss Harvey tries to murder Leo, but Vincent intervenes, resulting in both of them being sent to the infirmary while the thug is beaten to death after stabbing a prison guard. While in the infirmary, Leo requests Vincent's help to steal a chisel from the office. Vincent complies. After the theft, Vincent senses that Leo is planning on a prison break and offers to help so that he can escape too. Leo initially refuses, but begrudgingly agrees to collaborate when Vincent reveals he also has a grudge with Harvey.

Why It Trusts You

 * 1) In terms of the gameplay, players need to cooperate with each other in order to progress, and each situation can be approached differently, with both characters taking different roles. For instance, during an early segment of the game, the player controlling Vincent needs to distract a nurse and guard, so the player controlling Leo can find a chisel needed to aid their escape.
 * 2) You can choose how you want to approach a scenario depending on who you choose. Vincent's have a much more subtle approach while Leo's is more aggressive.
 * 3) A great story about two convicts who escape from prison and on the hunt for a crime boss who they both have a grudge for.
 * 4) The relationship building between Vincent and Leo is very well done with Vincent trying to teach Leo to be calmer and think more collective and Leo trying to help Vincent with him becoming a father and his martial problems.
 * 5) A heartbreaking plot twist at the end where it's revealed that Vincent was an undercover cop the whole time and was intending to use Leo as a way to find Harvey to get revenge for killing his brother that's revealed to have been killed during a deal involving Leo, which led to his arrest.
 * 6) Great performances especially Eric Krogh as Vincent and Josef himself as Leo.
 * 7) There are two different endings, which are both very heartbreaking. At the end of the game, Leo and Vincent are pitted against each other in a firefight whoever wins will fatally shoot the other.
 * 8) * If Vincent kills Leo, he'll inform the now widowed Linda, and get a verbal thrashing from her for killing her husband. Out of guilt, he resigns from the police force, and dedicates himself to raising his infant daughter with Carol. The only ones who pay respects to Leo's grave are Linda and their son, Alex.
 * 9) * If Leo kills Vincent, he'll secretly give Vincent's letter to Carol (which Vincent wrote on Leo's suggestion) and then flee with his own wife and son out of state, so he can start over and hide from the police that will eventually come after him for killing one of their own. While this is happening, Carol attends Vincent's funeral with her infant daughter, and is completely inconsolable.
 * 10) Good action set pieces.
 * 11) Several references to different games and movies. These include but not limited to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Oldboy, Scarface (1983), Heat, Guitar Hero, The Shining, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and The Shawshank Redemption.
 * 12) Good graphics.
 * 13) The game offers a "play free online" model such that players will be able to join online sessions (hosted by the player's friends) whether or not the joining player owns the actual game.
 * 14) There are a lot of minigames to play like, arm wrestling, banjo and piano duet, baseball, basketball, bottle shooting, Connect Four, darts, horseshoes, spearfishing, wheelchair wheelies; and exercises such as chin-ups, dips, push-ups, sit-ups, bench presses, and even arcade games like Grenade Brothers and Pong.
 * 15) Great soundtrack especially Farewell, the song that plays during the climax. It fills you with an emotion you can barely describe, that gets right down to your bones. Like a hole inside that can't be filled because you're not sure what filled it in the first place. It's chilling, and melancholy, and fucking awesome.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The gunplay is bad for a number of reasons.
 * 2) *There are no tracers which makes it harder to know where the bullets are going.
 * 3) *The recoil is off since every time you shoot the gun will aim up further and further.
 * 4) The game can be finished in roughly 6-8 hours.
 * 5) While the voice acting is good some of the acters can give very wooden performances.
 * 6) Plot hole: The firefight at the end could've been avoided if the police captain in the final chapter didn't reveal Vincent as an undercover cop. If the captain had waited a few seconds more and held off until Leo was handcuffed, or better yet, if the police had arrested them both and separated them before congratulating and freeing Vincent, no one would've died.

Reception
A Way Out received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. It sold over a million copies in two weeks, which EA expected to sell less than that through its lifetime (Yet sadly and unsurprisingly didn't show them that games without monetization can be successful). Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of Zero Punctuation, however, ranked it at #4 on the list of the Top 5 Blandest Games of 2018, calling it a "mediocre string of sub-David Cage slow time events and movie clichés".

It sold over a million copies in two weeks and in August 2019 Hazelight announced sales had reached two million. Fares revealed in January 2021 that the game had sold more than 3.5 million copies.