Every dated update, in order
The build you are playing is v1.0.20261105.001, dated 6 November 2026; before it came the 17 October demo update that removed save wiping, the 13 October release date and spec announcement, and a demo on Steam since December 2025.
Every dated fact about Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School in one place, from the first public demo to the launch-day hotfix. The build number on your main menu should match the last row.
Dates come from the Steam announcement feed for appid 3296060, the store's release record, and the version string in the 6 November hotfix. Times are the dates the announcements were posted, not the dates the builds were cut.
The whole timeline
| Date | Event | Version or build |
|---|---|---|
| 9 December 2025 | Demo first published on Steam (appid 4198180) | Demo build, later replaced |
| 11 July 2026 | Devlog 16: Death of an Artist, the narrative escape room | - |
| 25 July 2026 | Devlog 17: Science Campus, the chicken quest, Professor Von Bellini | - |
| 8 August 2026 | Devlog 18: Campus Gardens, the hedge maze, the riddle at the top | - |
| 22 August 2026 | Devlog 19: Arts Campus; also the release date moved to November | - |
| 13 October 2026 | Release date confirmed for 5 November; minimum and recommended specs published | - |
| 16 October 2026 | New demo build, save-compatible with release | Demo v2 |
| 17 October 2026 | Demo update: performance, localisation, no more save wiping, clueing fixes | Demo patch |
| 5 November 2026 | Launch on Steam, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 | Release build |
| 6 November 2026 | Launch-day hotfix: two quest-item deletion bugs, clown dialogue | v1.0.20261105.001 |
That is ten rows and every one of them is a date you can check against a public post.
What each entry actually changed
December 2025 - the demo. The demo appid 4198180 has a store release date of 9 December 2025. It is free, standalone, and it is the only way to test the game without buying it.
11 July - Death of an Artist. A devlog about the game's most narrative room: a murder-mystery play where the lead, Edie Quill, has vanished before the curtain. The studio describes it as unlike anything else in the game, focused on one professor's character, and built around performing lines in front of an audience. It also notes the room is heavily inspired by low-budget school plays.
25 July - Science Campus. The devlog that establishes the "one of five major locations" framing. It introduces Professor Von Bellini, the biology classroom, and the chicken quest the studio calls one of the first major campus quests. It also confirms the campus is full of extra credit, optional items, parkour and escape bucks.
8 August - Campus Gardens. The hedges, the waterfalls, the maze with something making noise in the middle, and a riddle at the top of the mountain that the studio mentions only as a reward for reading to the end. The studio also says the Gardens are not an "official" campus, which is why the area count and the campus count do not match.
22 August - Arts Campus, and the date move. Two announcements the same day: the Arts Campus devlog, and a release-date post confirming the game had moved to November. The same post announced the original Escape Academy at 85% off as a Steam Daily Deal and confirmed a Gamescom appearance at the Indie Arena Booth.
13 October - date and specs. The formal announcement of 5 November, plus the full minimum and recommended specifications and a promise of more news on "TWO upcoming DLC adventures". This is the post that also names the Purrfessor, the game's cat, which is the kind of detail that tells you the tone.
16-17 October - the demo patch. The most consequential pre-launch change, and the reason demo saves work at all: the demo used to wipe your save at the end of the run and no longer does. The same update shipped performance work, localisation fixes, and clueing improvements in A Clued Awakening and That Rings a Bell. The studio's own framing was that the old demo had "several localization bugs" from a mid-stream translation batch, now ironed out.
5 November - launch. Steam, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. The launch announcement lists the shipped optimisations: campus performance, quieter PA announcements, a fixed interaction collider after dismounting ladders, a fix for item photos taken before loading completed, plus a long list of minor NPC, collision, clipping, text, audio, material, world-state and UX fixes.
6 November - the hotfix. Three fixes and a version string: v1.0.20261105.001. Two quest-item deletion bugs and a swapped clown dialogue set. The full detail is on the known issues page.
What the version string tells you
v1.0.20261105.001 decomposes as major 1, minor 0, build date 2026-11-05, revision 001. The build date is the day before the hotfix post, which means the number was cut on launch day and published the next.
Practical use: if your main menu shows this string, you have the hotfix. If it shows a bare 1.0 or nothing, you are on the release build and the two quest bugs are live. The string appears on the main menu and on the pause menu, both in a corner.
What is not on the timeline
Three absences worth naming:
- No Switch version. Not announced, not dated, not rated.
- No DLC date. The Season Pass covers two expansions, both described only in shape. The 13 October post promised more news "soon" and there has been none.
- No post-launch roadmap. The launch announcement says the studio will "continue to monitor issues and player feedback", which is a commitment to patches rather than a schedule.
Next: known issues for what is still open, or the Season Pass page for the one part of the timeline that is still blank.