We all love a good mystery; whether it's solving puzzles or getting to the bottom of a terrifying whodunnit. For those looking for a game of wits and conundrums, there's plenty of games out there to scratch the itch.
For those who love going to escape rooms, you're in luck, as through the years, there has been an abundance of releases based on you being locked inside a room, building, or even strange new world where solving puzzles and cracking the mystery is your only chance of escaping back to your own reality. For those looking for their next great escape, here are some of the best that will have you screaming furiously in frustration, or have you clawing at the door in fear.
Updated by Sam Reaves on September 27th, 2021: The concept of being trapped in one location is something you have probably come to abhor in real life, but in games, it usually makes for a great time. Escaping rooms sounds like a serious subject, but you will find the genre can be comedic, relaxing, and even fun. It can also be a matter of life and death, so be sure you pick accordingly. Whether you are up for a brutal and violent escape or want to take your time on a relaxing journey to true freedom, these are the best escape room-style games that will have you itching for more.
14 Monument Valley
Monument Valley is a gorgeous indie puzzle game for mobile, where players control protagonist Ida as she seeks to explore wacky mazes and puzzles to find the level's exit.
With a recent sequel, Monument Valley has gone from strength to strength, offering small one-off escape-room style puzzles on the go along with stunning graphics that adapt beautifully to the mobile gaming market.
13 I Expect You To Die
I Expect You To Die has you playing as a secret agent that gets caught in precarious situations that will require a sharp mind to get out of. These virtual reality-based titles have you stationary, but able to interact with most items in the environment to solve the issue of your impending doom.
There is only one right way to accomplish each mission and many ways to die. They expect it after all. Once you trigger a toxic gas or get cut to ribbons by lasers, you are expected to avoid whatever triggered it and find the next step in your path to success. Through trial and error, some excellent spy work, and maybe a bit of luck, you'll succeed and escape your almost certain demise.
12 The Witness
The Witness is a beautiful and calming game, outside of the puzzles you have to do to move from area to area. The game excels at hiding puzzles in plain sight. Half of the difficulty of the game is in finding the puzzles themselves.
The general scope of the puzzles never changes. It is some form of connect the dots gone awry. Successfully pathing the puzzles will often unlock a door, power a generator, or give you the tools to continue forward. It is less of an escape room and more of an escape environment, though the amazing art style does deserve a thorough look-through.
11 Saw
The Saw series showcases the deadliest and most gruesome gameplay of the escape room genre. Whether you're escaping traps and rooms yourself or helping others find freedom, you'll be spending your time solving Jigsaw's masochistic puzzles.
When you are not shoving your arm into dirty, needle-infested toilet water to get keys, you can be found beating up other Jigsaw victims, avoiding shotgun-infested doorways, and meandering about until you find the next trap. If you end up liking the first entry, Saw 2: Flesh and Blood is much more of the same.
10 Amnesia: The Dark Descent
The famed first-person survival-horror game; Amnesia: The Dark Descent centers around protagonist Daniel as he wakes up trapped in a desolate castle with no idea how he got there and riddled with troubling memories of what he has done, even though he remembers nothing.
This game is seen as one of the hardest horror games around. You'll need to explore the eerie passageways and rooms within the castle to plot your escape, avoiding enemies at all costs by running away and using your wits to hide and survive. Seek out clues, solves puzzles, and explore the castle to find your own haunted memories, and hopefully an escape from this hellish nightmare.
9 999: 9 Hours. 9 Persons. 9 Doors
If you're looking for something more sinister, why not try the original DS title 999, a tense and disturbing game where nine participants wake up having been kidnapped by the enigmatic 'Zero' and abandoned together in an unknown location.
Forced to take part in a life-and-death style game, you must choose who to trust with your life. Tensions rise as you seek to unravel the mysteries of your location through solving puzzles, finding clues, and hopefully escaping with your lives.
8 Tick Tock: A Tale For Two
A game designed specifically for two players, Tick Tock: A Tale for Two is an escape room game where both players must work cooperatively to solve the mystery and escape together.
Having both woken up in an eerie world designed by famous clockmaker Amalie Ravn, your mission is to escape. With a story and design inspired by Scandinavian folk tales, you must explore different locations within an eerie village whilst solving deceptive puzzles and finding clues. It has simple game mechanics anyone could pick up and a one-off story that could easily create an evening in for you and a friend.
7 Silent Hill 4: The Room
Silent Hill 4: The Room was a branch out for the franchise, seeing a change in the narrative to one of isolation as protagonist Henry Townsend doesn't find himself exploring Silent Hill per se, but instead his own locked-in apartment, which he strives to escape from.
Taking place entirely inside the apartment apart from a jump through the wall to an alternate reality; Henry must work out just why he's become locked in, and the identities of the sinister and confusing presences he keeps encountering inside.
6 Superliminal
Superliminal is a first-person puzzle game all about turning your perception into reality. You make your way through Portal-like tests in a sleep clinic where your mind is your best weapon. While you are escaping rooms over and over again, it is the way you do so that shines.
In some rooms, you'll have to hold an object close to your face to trick your brain into thinking it is much bigger. In Superliminal, this actually makes the object bigger. Seeing is believing here. Picking up an item from far away will make it extraordinarily small, but potentially more useful. While you get the chance to escape these fun little tests, it is more an exercise in escaping your normal train of thought to come up with useful and unique perspectives.
5 We Were Here
A great game for two players, The We Were Here series is a thriller-escape set of games where you and a partner find yourselves split up from each other, with your only means of communication being a walkie-talkie.
Together, you must communicate to solves puzzles and find clues to aid in meeting up and plotting your escape from the building you've found yourselves trapped within. It's heavily inspired by Amnesia: The Dark Descent and real-life escape rooms.
4 Resident Evil
The first game in the award-winning franchise; Resident Evil sees you working your way out of a dilapidated mansion full of frightening monstrosities and spine-chilling mysteries.
The franchise holds up as some of the best in survival horror; with the first installment taking place almost entirely within the mansion's walls as you look for clues and make some blood-curdling discoveries all in your efforts to escape the premises and determine just what is going on with the Umbrella Corporation.
3 The Room
One of the best mobile escape-room games on the market; The Room is a series of games in which you need to work out and unlock a series of detailed and interconnected puzzle boxes in order to escape.
In the first game, you'll receive an invitation to an abandoned attic, before being confronted with a large iron safe covered in mysterious inscriptions. A letter atop it promises something ancient and astounding should you be able to prise it open. It's a game of simple escape-room puzzles, having even gone on to have a critically acclaimed virtual reality game.
2 Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
In the investigative classroom murder series Danganronpa, you play Makoto Naegi, a high school student trapped inside Hope's Peak Academy by a murderous teddy bear named Monokuma.
Along with the other students present, your task is to murder another classmate and get away with it in order to win your freedom back to the outside world. However, Naegi believes there is another way out, searching the school for clues and information in order to find out who Monokuma really is and just what is going on in the school, all while trying not to get murdered himself.
1 Portal
Portal is the highly successful and critically acclaimed first-person puzzle-platformer where players must solve puzzles using a portal gun, cubes, beams, and even tiny droids in order to work their way through the levels and escape a mysterious facility. This is all whilst being led by the mysterious and wise-cracking Glados.
It's constantly ranked among the best games of all time, having even been shortlisted for the Video Game Hall of Fame. It's a unique game like no other, with a fantastic narrative and an addicting set of puzzles along with a stunning sequel that is every bit as good as the original. If you haven't checked it out yet, let this be your reason to.