Prison Boss Prohibition Review – A Hilarious Smuggler Simulator with Awkward Physics

Prison Boss Prohibition puts you in the shoes of a criminal mastermind who manufactures illegal goods and sells them on the streets of fictional New York. We share our impressions of the game in our review.

• Developer: TREBUCHET
• Publisher: TREBUCHET, Creature Label
• Platforms: Meta Quest*, SteamVR
• Release date: July 10, 2025

New York City is in turmoil: the local mayor has banned everything, from cigarettes and beer to obscene magazines. However, your character sees a great opportunity and decides to open a bootleg shop to satisfy the populace’s demand.

A short tutorial will help you get the hang of the game. The rules are simple: craft products using a recipe book and sell them to customers. During the day, you’ll stock up on resources and sell illegal goods, while at night you’ll focus on production. At the same time, it’s important to keep an eye out for police officers who might bust your business: if you see a warning, quickly stash all your goods in hidden corners.

Prison Boss Prohibition features slightly chaotic gameplay: you spin like a top, juggling everything at once: taking phone orders, serving customers, putting money in the register, and making lemonade and beer. At first, everything seems simple, but over time, the tasks become more complex, and the likelihood of making a mistake increases dramatically.

This is exacerbated by less-than-perfect motion tracking. Your hands can get stuck in cabinet drawers, and grabbing objects is slightly delayed. In sequences where you need to hurry and execute every action with extreme precision, these issues can lead to serious misses, robbing much of the game’s enjoyment. You’ll likely get used to the controls and the quirky physics model over time, but Prison Boss Prohibition will be quite frustrating to play at first.

However, these shortcomings are worth overlooking for the opportunity to immerse yourself in a wonderful alternate universe set in the 1920s, with hilarious characters, detailed environments, and good situational humor. You can also invite a friend and play together, sharing items and resources, though you won’t be able to interact directly due to an invisible wall separating you. And thanks to detailed customization, you can customize your character’s appearance and interior.

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Ultimately, Prison Boss Prohibition is a captivating simulator that never gets boring. While the game does have some drawbacks, they’re not enough to seriously dampen the spirits of a gamer looking for a fun experience. It’s worth noting that the developers haven’t abandoned the project, updating it with new content, both free and premium DLC.