Summary
As fun as real-lifeescape roomssound, they’re not exactly the most convenient—or faint-of-heart-friendly—experience out there. Even if an escape room isn’texplicitly horror-themed, there’s just something about them that makes them a bit too intense for some. They’re unnerving, spooky, mentally challenging, and often high-stakes—all of which can be a lot to handle when it’s happening in real life.
However,video game takes on escape roomsare a perfect alternative that saves one from a lot of unnecessary stress and rage while still keeping the sanctity of the experience intact. If one adds in the little factor of horror, the entire experience is elevated to the perfect level of creepiness that requires players to use just enough of their brains and still come out the other side unscathed.
8HAG
Plays Out Like A B-Rated Horror Movie With Blatant Jump Scares And Near-Death Situations
HAGis a first-person puzzle game crafted for players who can handle a truly terrifying escape roomexperience packed withjump scares and visual horrors far beyond the usual ‘casual’ scares. While the game itself is from a small indie developer, it definitely feels like a higher-budget release with how atmospheric and downright horrifying its graphics and mechanics are.
The game traps players in a rundown house patrolled by an old woman—the ‘Hag’—and her horrific son, both known for dabbling in black magic and less-than-legal activities. Players need to hide from the hag and her children while simultaneously scouring the morbid house for clues and escape routes, with danger lurking around every corner.
The Past Withinis a Rusty Lake co-oppoint-and-click puzzle gamethat features Rusty Lakes' central characters, the Vanderblooms. This time, the Vanderbloom in question is the third-generation son, Albert Vanderbloom, known for his not-so-righteous shenanigans against his family.
Being primarily a co-op game,The Past Withincannot be played alone, which makes it perfect for emulating a real-life escape room. Both players will essentially just experience the game differently and will have to somehow connect the clues (from both the past and future) to solve the mysteries given to them. They’ll eventually go through the two highly comprehensive chapters of the game to reach a conclusive result about Albert Vanderbloom’s scheme against both his family and the world.
Escape the Backrooms, as its name suggests, is a Backrooms-themed co-op game that works like an escape room despite being set in an allegedly infinite backdrop. The game throws four players into multiple different Backrooms-themed levels with a bunch of hostile entities and gives them a number of different ways to escape.
What truly makes this an escape room game is the simple mechanic that the only way everyone in the game is going to advance to the next level safely is if everyone escapes together. It plays out like an actual escape room and cooperation is literally the key here—no pun intended. The proximity chat in-game definitely adds to the realism, and the twenty-plus levels with their plethora of hostile mobs simply increase the stakes that much more.
5The Inheritance Of Crimson Manor
The Inheritance of Crimson Manoris a first-person single-playerVictorian-themed game set entirely in a dark and gritty Victorianmansion. It requires players to explore said mansion and eventually come across some unhinged secrets about its owner. Unlike typical co-op escape room games, this one delivers a distinct story with non-linear progression and challenging puzzles that go beyond just ‘escaping rooms,’ weaving everything into a bigger, more immersive mystery.
Players take on the role of an assistant to Hadley Strange, a wealthy, high-profile businessman with a massive mansion and fortune to his name. The business tycoon, a seemingly normal person apart from his enormous wealth, changes the course of history when he and his entire family die under mysterious circumstances and leave their manor to the player character. Now, players must explore the hauntingly beautiful manor and its 24 different rooms to piece together clues that reveal a far darker side to Hadley Strange and the cryptic residence.
4Homebody
A Slasher Movie Set In An Escape Room All Happening In A Video Game
Passive escape room games that allow players enough time and patience to go through their puzzles slowly are a gem. They’re perfect for a slow and intellectually demanding session that allows players to be meticulous with their playthrough. However, there’s just something about the dynamics of video games that elevates the stakes by throwing in a hostile mob or two.Homebodyis a psychological horror puzzle game that does exactly that.
Withplayers having a serial killerconsistently on their back,Homebodyessentially forces them to be very quick with their decision-making and puzzle-solving abilities. Players play as Emily, a college student with a dark and tragic past that pushes her into trying to reforge old bonds with her estranged friends. To do that, the group takes a vacation to a remote cabin in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately for them, their reconnecting attempts are left unfinished when the lights in the vacation house go out, and they’re left to escape from a relentless serial killer who’s bent on picking them off one by one.
The Roomis a point-and-click game that offers amore conventional escape roomexperience consisting solely of hints and visual cues to solve the big mystery featured in the game. It doesn’t have a very defined story and is mostly dependent on how far players go or how many puzzles they solve.
Players are thrown into a dark attic room with a big, antique-looking safe in the middle of it, which they have to solve with the help of some obscure notes from another hinted player. The entire room consists of small clues that lead to the opening of the safe. An act that initially seems innocent and fun enough takes a dark turn when the notes become more and more unhinged, clearly implying that the previous player did not have a very good time figuring out the puzzles in the room.
2The Tartarus Key
An Eerily Disturbing Game That Constantly Makes You Feel Like You’re Being Watched — Perhaps You Are
The Tartarus Keyis anatmospheric horror puzzle gamethat focuses a lot more on exploration and plays on the concept of ‘being stalked’ without actively putting players into a run-and-chase situation. The game’s vibe creates the unsettling sense that the player character is constantly being followed and watched, pulling players into a state of creeping paranoia and unease.
The game opens with the main character, Alex Young, waking up in a dimly lit mansion that immediately gives her the creeps. She quickly discovers that the mansion is locked up tight, with no easy way out. To make matters worse, she realizes she’s not the only ‘prisoner’ of these mysterious kidnappers, and she is forced to face a tough moral choice: Should she attempt to save only herself, or risk her own life to help the other captives she can hear?
1Anglerfish
2D Horror With The Most Surreal Looking Characters
Anglerfishis a 2D horror escape room game that proves itself to be one of the most unique games on this list, relating to not only its surreal (almost odd-looking) graphics but also its consistently changing maps. The story that follows its odd graphics and mechanics is even stranger.
Players take on the role of a masked person equipped with a shotgun, who has to survive a night in a very volatile bar known as Anglerfish. The bar, being very unnerving and uncomfortable, is a hotspot for the most unhinged beings in the area. The player character needs to explore and find out what’s making this bar so eerie and get to the bottom of its secrets…or die trying, which in this case is a fun little experience. InAnglerfish,death is the only way to save progress, and each time players respawn, the game changes, making every checkpoint feel like a brand-new experience.
