Escape Simulator Review (Xbox Series X|S & PC)

Escape rooms hit awfully close to home for me, not because I’ve taken on a concerning amount of them over the past several years, but because I’ve spent a good amount of time behind the veil—as a Games Master, no less. To that end, I can’t help but cradle the notion that the activity is far greater than your typical party game. And for the most part, it is. Or at least, it is, provided that you, well, escape within the allotted time. But even then, escape rooms have this magical way of wriggling into our heads and making us ponder the questions that, at least in any other situation, just wouldn’t ever spring to mind. It can be a thrill, a hot mess, or a sixty-minute spell of dopamine-fueled adventure. And, as luck would have it, Pine Studio’s Escape Simulator knows all too well how to build on these emotions to capture a truly invigorating puzzle game that brings out the best of both worlds.

In most cases, I’d wager that any other copycat escape room simulator is incapable of capturing the essence of the pastime. But, to my surprise, Escape Simulator isn’t like the rest of its ilk. It’s different in that, while still holding onto the same set of keys as its peers, it finds vast opportunities to keep the experience rolling, not with its in-house collection of eccentric rooms, but with an intuitive and highly creative level editor that allows fledgling builders the chance to craft their own. And that’s a huge boon in my book, as it adds a huge deal of replay value to the experience. Like a room with an infinite number of locked doors and boxes, it just keeps going — and that alone makes the price of admission seem like a steal, truly.

If you’re unfamiliar with escape rooms, then honestly, you needn’t search any further than the devil that’s in the details. As the title openly implies, it’s a game in which players work to solve various riddles, creative challenges, and logical puzzles in order to escape from a room. Similar to a real escape room, you have a time limit to achieve your goal—a fifteen-minute window that, if you accidentally go over, reduces your overall trophy count. But, here’s the thing with Escape Sim: you don’t need to fret about the hourglass. As the game prides itself on being a “relaxing” experience that prefers to reward patience and intuition, at no point do you ever need to bolt through the motions in record time. And to be honest, that’s a huge relief here, as some of the built-in rooms can be awfully challenging to solve.

To make the rooms a little easier to navigate, Escape Simulator houses a useful hint system that allows you to unlock clues should you ever struggle to solve a riddle or locate a crucial component that activates a new section of the room itself. Granted, the game still requires you to think outside of the box in order to progress through each of its chapters. Though, at no point does it make the act itself feel overwhelming or the least bit daunting. Challenging, at times, for sure, but never truly impossible. If anything, though, the tougher obstacles often result in greater lightbulb moments, to the point where you find yourself tapping into that all-important “a-ha” mentality. It doesn’t happen all that often, but when it does, it feels great.

I won’t pretend that Escape Simulator is all sunshine and rainbows, because at the end of the day, it does harbor its own share of technical issues. Granted, most of the problems here tend to idle within the community itself, and not so much in the base game or the core rooms. Objects, for example, often clip through walls or disappear after you drop them, and some notes or clues can often be painfully difficult to see, even with the zoom function, annoyingly. But, as I said, the vanilla experience is about as airtight as it can get, and not to mention full of themes and unique features to magnify and scrub through. There’s also a character customization tool, too, which, admittedly, doesn’t add a huge amount to the overall experience, but allows you to tailor your sleuth to your own tastes. It’s a small feature I’ll admit, but it makes for a neat compliment.

Given the fact that Escape Simulator contains a huge banquet of creative stages and a community-driven hub of custom rooms, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get bored of wracking your brain over its anthology of puzzles. What’s more, as it fosters a sizable variety of themes and genres, there’s a little something for every puzzle-solving fanatic here. Aside from its twenty-eight base rooms—a catalog that harbors its own distinct collection of stories and challenges—you also have upwards of 4,000 player-built stages to conquer on the side. And so, the odds of ever finding the keys to the exit are slim to non-existent. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you.

Thanks to its vibrant aesthetic and family-friendly facets, Escape Simulator is, above all else, a rather easy game to learn and share with friends, relatives and younger players who equally enjoy short but provoking puzzle games. It might not appeal to the entire demographic, given that it can be surprisingly difficult to identify specific problems and clues in a short time frame. That said, it is a game that caters to all age groups and skill levels, more so given that it includes a built-in hint system to help scoot you in the right direction.

Of course, if you can breeze through the tutorial and earn your stripes the good old-fashioned way, then there shouldn’t be a lot to prevent you from cracking your knuckles and digging into Escape Simulator’s wealth of content. To that end, I’d say that it makes for a perfect solution for your sleuth-like habits. It’s also a lot cheaper than your local escape room — so there’s that.

Verdict

Escape Simulator lives up to its moniker as an ideal advocate for escapism, with more puzzles, more locks, and not to mention thousands of rooms to keep you fumbling for clues and frequent “a-ha!” moments for days, weeks, and perhaps even months. With a generous bouquet of creative rooms and a thriving community that bears the right to hold a finger in every jigsaw-layered pie, the game evidently stands tall as a brilliant puzzler with a whole lot of replay value. To that end, I’d say that it’s more than worth the asking price.