Hard Time
Worth it · RPG · 2017
Steam Deck PlayableThe verdict
BUY IT.
Worth it at $4.99.
- Length
- 6.1h
- Value
- $0.82/hr
- Reviews
- 89% of 322 positive
Watch this gameOne alert at a price you pick.
Buy now or wait
Discounted in each of its last 8 seasonal sales. Last cut ended 11 days ago.
- Next sale
- Winter Sale, Dec 17 to Jan 4
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
About the game
The toughest prison sim in the yard has been locked back up to serve another sentence in 2D!
Minimum specs
Minimum on the Steam store: 2 GB of memory, 102 MB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS.
The value story
46 discounts in the 9 years on record, a median of 40 percent off across all of them, roughly 6 weeks apart. Today it is at full price, and its last discount ended 11 days ago.
Against its own genre it lands in the top 5 percent on value. It is cheaper than 69 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 89 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Blade and Sorcery ($29.99, scores 97) beats it on value, while it beats BEARS, VODKA, BALALAIKA! 🐻 ($3.99, scores 67).
More about Hard Time
This site sampled 241 of its Steam-purchase reviews; 7 were written by buyers who refunded it, sampled from reviews written March 2020 to August 2026. That is more refunded reviewers than 9 in 10 paid games this site has sampled to the same depth, and among the 2,866 games in its genre sampled this deeply, 80 have a larger share. The typical game sits near 5 in 1,000, so the score docks it. 1 of the 7 refunded reviewers was past Valve's two-hour window when they wrote the review. Inside the two-hour refund window, 83 percent of the 124 reviews written there were positive, against 89 percent overall, and those are 41 percent of everything written about it.
Players
- Players online
- 1 when we last checked, on Oct 4, 23:54 UTC
Player counts from the Steam Web API.
What players say
Hard Time is a prison simulation that transforms everyday survival behind bars into a constantly evolving sandbox of unpredictable events. Developed and published by MDickie, the game abandons scripted storytelling in favor of player-driven experiences, allowing every sentence to unfold differently. Instead of guiding players through a fixed narrative, it encourages them to carve out their own reputation inside a...
2 more reviews
Boring critics hate it, gamers love it. Seriously, Mat is getting too much criticism nowadays. Here's the thing: this is a banger and a massive improvement from hard time 2006. More items, a lot of sick wrestling moves, very rude NPCs, low quality but charming graphics, and random, unexpected encounters all make this game great. This is just one of the many great games by MDickie...
Can you do a update for multiplayer, how I with my friend can go in all the rooms, at the same time, I hope you understand, what I mean, thanks! :D
Steam reviews, mixed to its ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic), achievement curve (Steam global achievements).
Cite this score
Hard Time scores 71/100 on the BANG Score (worth it) as of Oct 19, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/686440/hard-timeReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 29, price as of Oct 18. A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.