London’s best escape rooms

You can't move for ’90s nostalgia these days, and that’s where the allure of this particular experience lies. Painstakingly reconstructed sets from the original cult TV series make you really feel like you’re on the show.  The Crystal Maze is a test of your physical and mental skills and endurance. It might take twice as long as your average escape room, but it’s worth it for the amount of fun you’ll have here. The more challenges you complete, the more crystals you win and the more time you’ll have for the final test in the Crystal Dome. It’s just like you’re in the telly. Start the fans please!

‘Sherlock’ fans were quivering in their deerstalkers when it was announced that a purpose-built escape game based on the BBC drama was going to open in London. It’s easy to be cynical about the decision to tap into the escape game boom, but this is not some ‘inspired by’ cash-in. Writers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (who also played Mycroft) teamed up with escape-game-maker Time Run to make this happen, and their sharp, sardonic tone runs right through the experience. When we visited, the journey began in ‘Doyle’s Opticians’ (as in Arthur Conan), a cover for a ‘spy training agency’, and continued through replicas of familiar sets with new footage featuring maniacal Irish villain Jim Moriarty (Andrew Scott), exasperated Dr Watson (Martin Freeman) and supercilious Mycroft. As Holmes himself would say, here, the game is afoot. 

We’re big fans of what these guys do. Not only do they create brilliantly fiendish noodle-scratchers, they do so in very creative ways. There’s peril around lots of corners that will make you want to hurry up your problem-solving and get out. You can take on dream roles as an undercover sky or a ghostbuster in a haunted hotel or plunge yourself into your own horror movie scenario as you try to escape the clutches of an evil psychopath. The room where you have to contain a deadly pathogen might trigger unwanted memories of lockdown, but, all in all, there’s loads of fun (and a few screams) to be had here.

You can’t move for chat about artificial intelligence these days and the robots are even taking over escape games. AI Escape is a ‘fully automated’ escape game and it challenges you to try and outsmart the most advanced AI – perhaps good training for when our computers rise up against us. Be warned: this is not for novices. It’s also a real gear change compared to most other London venues of its ilk. It’s heavily logic and maths-puzzle-centric. For anyone who loves a fiendish thinky-thinky problem, this is probably the escape game for you. But be prepared to be heavily challenged. 

Tech wizardry is what the six rooms at this Holloway Road escape game are all about. Scenarios on offer here pull inspiration from some of your favourite movies and will take you from the high seas to blood-soaked lairs. You can either by the victim or the villain – as the former, try and escape the grasp of a serial killer with a taste for human flesh or pick up a wand and summon your best spells to defeat a magical monster. As the latter, become a New York street racer on a mission to rob a series of banks, or join Davy Jones’ pirates in looting a sinking ship.

Introducing London’s first escape room created exclusively for two players only. 2 Tickets 2 Ride takes you and a friend on an action-packed adventure to uncover the identity of a madman and his gang who are threatening to sink London under the ground. Jet2Space requires you to regain control of an unruly spaceship, and Gangster’s Treasure pits you against the cops as you search for the hidden loot of a murdered mob man. The latter can also be played by up to six players, should there be more than just a pair of you in the mood for puzzling your way out of a room.

There may well be more to being recruited as a spy than an hour of codebreaking, briefcases and teamwork, but if it’s even half as exciting in real life as this escape game, then it’s no wonder MI5 is so selective. Want to puzzle but don’t want to be stuck indoors? clueQuest also offers outdoor games that you can play whenever you like. Alternatively, you can buy at-home escape games to complete from the comfort of your own home.

Those of a nervous disposition, look away now: Enigma Escape is a problem-solving, team-working one-hour escape challenge with a gory plot at its centre. The Killer is pleasingly physical – you won’t need muscle or anything but it’s fun to be solving puzzles by actually doing things rather than just thinking really hard. Looking for something more politically-driven? Tackle The Darkest Hour instead and trawl Winston Churchill’s private lounge for a nuclear device hidden in a Cold War-era secret command centre.

Here, players choose between tackling The Million Pound Heist or trying their hand at the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The latter is a magical experience which takes its theme from literature’s most famous boy wizard. Your team of three to five people must graduate from a school of witchcraft and wizardry by solving puzzles and tracking down clues. The runes, potions, charms and spells are held in specially designed rooms that are brimming with detail and clever surprises.

This 60-minute escape challenge is a fun experience with the odd bit of clever tech thrown in. It’s probably more one for people who’ve never done an escape game before, with at least the Bank Heist game feeling as though it was a couple of puzzles too short. Other scenarios include hunting down the killer of a 1930s West End actress and stopping a mad scientist from selling a toxin that has the power to control the human race. High stakes stuff.

Escape Land is a mysterious experience from the off. Step down beneath the bustling streets of Oxford Street and find yourself transported into a contrastingly mellow environment where you have the choice of attempting one of two rooms. Da Vinci’s Exploration or Right to the Throne. The Da Vinci room is tough: the line is that Da Vinci himself set the locks and riddles for you to solve, so you know it won’t be easy. The truth is it isn’t, but it’s incredibly engaging. Both rely on problem-solving and mind bending riddles, so concentrate and stay sharp.

Test your puzzle-solving abilities at this west London escape game. Each of the five rooms is themed (Area 51, witchcraft and Da Vinci among them) and teams from two up to seven have one hour to get out by deciphering codes, opening locks and unearthing clues. A second location in Whitechapel gives even more opportunities to use your noodle to win back your freedom, from a casino heist theme to the Mayan temples. Suitable for children aged ten upwards.

Escape Rooms’ one-hour games will confront you with plenty of exciting effects to keep you all on your toes. There are two themed games to choose from, one based in the cursed chamber of an Egyptian pharaoh, and the other a room in the British Museum containing a precious Chinese porcelain which needs returning to its rightful owner. Book in advance. 

Being set inside South Kentish Town tube station, which closed to the public in 1924, is part of the appeal of this WWII-themed escape game effort, with staff dressed in 1940s army gear and corridors pumped with dry ice as you enter the building. There are two tube-themed games to play (plus one Enigma one) – the futuristic Underground 2099 or The Lost Passenger, based on the true story of the disused station. Whichever you choose, you only have an hour to get out.

No Escape has four venues and seven escape scenarios to choose from. One at the Oxford Street branch will have you attempting to evade a murderous dentist in just 60 minutes. As you arrive for your ‘check-up’, you and your team will be locked in the surgery room and forced to solve cryptic clues in order to escape. It’ll strike new fear into you next time you pay a visit to your own dental surgery.

Omescape combines two trends in the IRL games scene – escape rooms and virtual reality. Here, you’ll don a headset and grab a controller, and roam freely with your pals through various VR scenes. You can choose from the sci-fi Eclipse, step into Indiana Jones’ shoes in Jumpers, go steampunk in Huxley or much more. Other than being way more technically advanced than your average escape room, the main principles here are the same – find clues and crack puzzles to earn your liberation from the story you select.

This is the sort of escape game that could only have been made a few years into the genre’s lifespan: cleverly subverting a few of the usual tropes in a way that has the potential to cheekily wrongfoot seasoned players. It’s also a tad trickier than a lot of games – it claims that there’s only a 50 percent success rate. If you really love this game and want another go, returning players can have another crack for free – you just need three paying players on any booking.

If the idea of being locked in a room fills you with dread then SENSAS might be a good escape room option for you. The new attraction secluded in one of Vauxhall’s railway arches doesn’t really involve any escaping at all, but rather a seriously entertaining multi-sensory team challenge with an important message behind it. In teams of 4-15, you’ll work your way round a series of themed rooms each designed to test one of your five senses. The idea is that it demonstrates just how much we would all struggle when deprived of any of these. As you move through the game, tasting, sniffing and feeling your way to victory, you’ll also collect points that will be converted into a cash donation towards a local partner charity supporting people with disabilities.