Escape Road

Summary

Escape Road is an epic getaway driving game where you’re a wanted criminal fleeing in hot pursuit after pulling off a bank heist. The cops are on your tail from the moment you start moving, and your wanted level climbs the longer you evade capture.

What begins as a simple car chase quickly escalates into full-blown chaos as your wanted level increases. Soon, you’ll face roadblocks, armored trucks, and even choppers overhead. Eventually, the police will call out the military for support, who turn up all guns blazing with tanks and armored monster trucks, all with one goal – to get you behind bars, whatever it takes.

The top-down view provides old-school GTA vibes (for those old enough to remember!), letting you swerve and weave through the low-poly 3D city packed with traffic, buildings, collapsing lampposts, and various other obstacles. 

You only need to think about steering and braking while pulling off your best driving and drifting skills to pull off sharp 180-degree turns, donuts, jumping off vehicle transporters, and sneaking through narrow back alleys in an effort to outsmart the cops.

As you collect the cash piles dotted around the city, you’ll earn spins on a fruit machine that unlocks new vehicles, with an insane roster of 90 rides in total. There’s just about everything imaginable, from drift cars to supercars, tractors, and even a London double-decker bus. Some are faster, some handle better, and others have bizarre shapes that make it hard for cops to ram you.

Stop for too long or take too many hits, and it’s game over – you’re heading straight to prison. If you manage to pull off a legendary run, your notorious your high score will (hopefully) earn you a spot on the daily, weekly, monthly, and maybe even all-time leaderboards.

Escape Road features

• Release date – September 2024
• Difficulty – Beginner/Intermediate
• Levels/environments – 1 (endless city)
• Number of vehicles – 90
• Vehicle customization/upgrades – No
• Multiplayer – No (leaderboards only)
• Mobile – Yes (iOS and Android)
• Developer – AZ Games

Physics

Escape Road brings slidey, fast-paced arcade-style handling. It’s fun and easy to get used to, and perfect for high-speed chases or drifting around corners to get the cops off your tail.

If you want more realistic drifting physics to truly test your skills, along with stunning graphics, this is why Drift Hunters MAX is the most popular game at Drifted. It offers a simulator-style experience with grippy handling, along with over 30 real-world cars, in-depth tuning, and plenty of upgrades and game modes (including a challenging judged drift mode with zones) to keep you entertained.

The downsides of DH MAX are the lack of online features and spec requirements, which is where Drift King is the perfect alternative, offering a similar experience, though not quite as realistic, with an online multiplayer mode where you can tandem and battle with friends. 

Graphics

While the graphics won’t compete with high-end drifting games, the satisfyingly basic, blocky, low-poly 3D visuals suit the game perfectly, making it nicely optimized even on low-end devices.

Polytrack fans will be familiar with the vibe from the visuals here, as it’s another low-poly game. However, instead of avoiding the cops, you’ll put your driving skills to the ultimate test on challenging global leaderboards. There’s a reason why many fans feel this is the most difficult driving game out there, making it a must-try for any die-hard racing fan.

Escape Road controls

Your vehicle auto-accelerates (think of it as the pedal being jammed at full throttle!), so you only need to worry about steering, braking, and reversing.

PC/laptop/Chromebook

• A/Left arrow – Steer left
• D/Right arrow – Steer right
• S/Down arrow – Brake/reverse
• Esc – Pause menu

Mobile/tablet (iOS/Android)

• Turn left – Press the left side of the screen
• Turn right – Press the right side of the screen
• Brake/reverse – Two-finger/thumb press on the screen

Like all of the offerings in our ever-growing free mobile games collection, Escape Road is perfectly optimized for mobile browsers, so you can play it anywhere.

How to play Escape Road

Initial setup

At the start, you’re outside the bank after pulling off a heist. Before you panic and drive off, we recommend taking a quick look at the main menu.

Top left – Pause (or press Esc anytime). Below that is the sound toggle (quick mute).

Bottom left – Browse the 90-vehicle roster. You start with a basic red racer, but you’ll soon unlock some of the bonkers offerings, which we’ll explore in the car list below.

Top right – Current bank balance and score.

Bottom middle – Change this text box to your chosen username to be displayed on the public leaderboards.

Getting started

Be warned – as soon as you press a steering key, the cops will immediately start chasing you. Your car auto-accelerates, so you just steer left/right and brake/reverse.

Your goal is to avoid the police (and eventually military) at all costs, collect the cash piles scattered around the city, and survive as long as possible.

Every $100 you collect earns you a spin on the fruit machine, where you’ll unlock a random mystery new ride for your garage.

The city is packed with traffic, buildings, lampposts, and smashable obstacles (but be warned, not everything will crumple when you hit it!).

You need to dodge everything while the cops do their best to ram into you from all angles. You need to take advantage of things like the vehicle transporter trucks with ramps on the back to launch off them, and use the narrow back alleys and sharp turns to shake the pursuers. Even the starter car is faster than most cop cars, so you can outpace them right away if you drive smart.

As you progress, your wanted level increases. Once you reach 5 stars, the police call out for backup, which is when the army brings out their armored trucks, roadblocks, tanks with missiles, and choppers overhead. Once your car starts smoking (white smoke, then black smoke when you know it’s critical), you’re one big hit away from game over.

Falling into the river is another (rather obvious) thing you’ll need to avoid doing, and while going off-road slows vehicles down slightly, it can often work to your advantage, especially if you’ve got a 4X4. Don’t stop moving, or the cops will arrest you instantly.

Once you’ve collected $100, click “Win a new car” to spin the fruit machine. The rewards are categorized as Common, Rare, Legendary, and Epic. You can’t choose which vehicle(s) you unlock; it’s totally random, depending on the outcome here.

Game modes

There’s one endless mode with a single (seemingly simple) objective – escape the cops, collect cash, unlock cars, and climb the leaderboards. You’ll soon realize that it’s simple, but addictive, especially when you experience how different each of the new unlocks feels.

If you want more variety here, Charger City Driver offers an open-world city with realistic drifting physics and multiple game modes, including police chases. Or, you can check out Police Chase, which offers a similar top-down vibe to this one, but with better drifting physics and missiles you can fire at the cops.

For those who want to play as the good guys for a change, Drift Police Simulator lets you hunt down criminals with drift-friendly cop missions. If none of these take your fancy, there are plenty more police games in our catalog to explore.

Car list

Although Escape Road looks simple, it actually has one of the most impressive rosters, with 90 vehicles unlocked via fruit machine spins ($100 per spin).

You’ll soon start unlocking some of the most unlikely rides (and beyond), such as hovercrafts, jet skis, go-karts, drift cars, limousines, Formula racers, drag racers, lorries, London buses, tractors, diggers, trucks, tanks, and much, much more.

Each vehicle has its own stand-out appeal and characteristics. Some examples are:

• Speed – Options like drag racers are insanely quick in a straight line, but just like the real world, they struggle with turns, and they’re so low that they often hit the kerbs
• Handling – Smaller, lighter cars are often much more nimble, drift better, and are capable of navigating alleys (that tanks and armored trucks can’t get through) with ease
• Durability – Larger vehicles like buses, tanks, and armored vehicles take more hits but are slower, and won’t handle so well
• Styling – Bizarrely shaped vehicles (like the cone-fronted designs) make it harder for cops to ram you from the front, and also allow you to easily plow traffic out of the way

Some vehicles also add their own unique twists. For example, the ‘Classy Car’ (old Ford Model T-style) has skinny wheels that give it poor grip (but it’s surprisingly capable of going sideways!). But the coolest thing is that the game even switches to grayscale to mimic the 1930s era. Although I’m not sure they had the modern military vehicles back then!

One of my favorite all-rounders has been ‘OVERTHETOP’, a pickup truck that’s quick, strong, durable, great off-road, and has excellent handling. It’s a great do-it-all vehicle that works great in most situations. Other cars are more specialized and might excel at one thing, but you’ll likely return to your trusty favorites when you want to rack up your earnings quickly.

Once you get better at the game, you’ll typically earn a new spin after each run as long as you focus on collecting cash. Annoyingly, you can win duplicate cars despite the huge roster, which means wasted cash.

If you’re tired of collecting cash and failing to win your favorite cars, Madalin Stunt Cars 3 is another option where all 34 vehicles are immediately unlocked from the start, and you can throw them off huge ramps in the open-world stunt arena, and even play with your buddies in online multiplayer.

Tuning, customization, and upgrades

There’s no tuning, customization, or upgrades in Escape Road. You’re stuck with stock vehicles, but at least there are plenty of them!

If you want in-depth customization alongside great physics, Drift Hunters is a great pick, offering realistic drifting, vehicle tuning, and everything this game lacks on the customization front. The best part is that it’s perfect if you’ve not got a higher-end device, as you’ll need for Drift Hunters MAX.

Advanced tips & tricks

Don’t be afraid to hit the brakes (or reverse)

Auto-accelerate makes you feel like you need full throttle all the time, but hitting the brakes for controlled driving is often far more optimal. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself smashing into everything and leaving a smoke trail coming from your car before the cops even touch you!

Mix up your steering inputs to confuse the cops

At high speed, tap the left and right steering keys carefully to balance your car. Other times, hold them down to pull off a sharp 180 and speed off in the opposite direction, confusing the pursuers.

Use the backroads and narrow gaps between buildings

Once you’ve mastered the handling, you’ll easily outdrive the local cops, but you’ll often need to think creatively to continue outsmarting them. When difficulty ramps up, and the tanks arrive, squeeze through alleyways in a smaller vehicle and laugh as they get stuck.

Don’t chase the cash piles until it’s safe

It’s tempting to react instantly when you see the money, but it’s not going anywhere, so focus on avoiding cops first, then loop back and collect when it’s safe.

Watch out for the smoke warnings

After a few crashes, you’ll see white smoke pouring from your hood, indicating your vehicle is taking a beating. After a few more hits, black smoke means your engine is on its last legs, so you’ll need to be extremely careful at this point – one more crash, and it’s game over.

Escape Road FAQ