Review: Enigma Quest - Escape Arcade

We race through as many of Escape Arcade's 30 unique 'simulations' as possible in this Chancery Lane-based interactive escape-room experience.

Photo: Enigma Quest

Enigma Quest's Escape Arcade is a competitive escape-room style experience located near Chancery Lane for teams of up to 4 players. Within it, groups have 60 minutes to earn as many points as possible across a number of the experience's 30 different 'simulation' rooms.

While it's similar in design to Prison Island, with both experiences offering players the freedom to choose which rooms to tackle in any order they like and the ability to replay rooms if they choose, the two experiences differ in several key ways, most notably in their game styles and Escape Arcade’s approach to time management.

Although the primary goal for those taking part in Escape Arcade is to top that day's leaderboard, there's some light narrative theming woven throughout. The experience centres around Engima Quest's Chancery Lane headquarters acting as a front for EQIC, an elite shadow force dedicated to maintaining world order. Within EQIC, Escape Arcade serves as the proving ground for would-be operatives to demonstrate that they've got what it takes to join the organisation.

Photo: Enigma Quest

The experience begins with a short briefing from an EQIC operative. As expected, there are the usual warnings about not damaging the rooms or removing anything from inside them, but once each team is issued a wristband, which unlocks available rooms and tracks scores, they're free to explore the underground facility and decide which of the many rooms to take on.

There’s a huge variety of challenges on offer across Escape Arcade’s 30 simulations, with rooms themed around everything from kitchens and tube trains to top-secret government facilities and drab open-plan offices. While some rooms rely on physical skills such as balance and agility, Escape Arcade places a strong emphasis on deduction, reasoning and team communication, making the majority of the experience open to everyone, regardless of fitness level.

Outside each room is a small panel displaying the game’s name, a brief description of its contents, and details on the game type and the skills required to succeed. While all of this information is helpful, much of the enjoyment in Escape Arcade comes from stepping through the doors without knowing exactly what awaits on the other side.

Photo: Immersive Rumours

Regardless of the skills required within each simulation, once a team commits to a room, they're unable to try any others until that game’s five-minute timer has expired. If it turns out to be a game where the team is scoring well, great. If they struggle to understand the objective and fail to click with it, there is no way out until time runs down.

While this enforced 5-minute cooldown for entering rooms means that every team will come out of the experience having played roughly the same number of games, even the most committed teams will only get to try around a third of the games on offer at Escape Arcade in a single visit. During our session, we completed 11 rooms, which feels like the average. In comparison, a standard session at Prison Island provides just enough time to attempt all 30 rooms, even if some of them yield no points.

Photo: Enigma Quest

Without revealing too much about the individual rooms, some of our personal highlights included The Library, which has teams frantically searching shelves of books while solving riddles; Retro Reels, styled like a Blockbuster, where players identify films from their trailers and scan the correct DVD case; and Staying Alive, a dancefloor-inspired space that requires teams to step on illuminated floor tiles with precise timing to earn points. Not all of these games produced high scores for us, but each was engaging and easy to grasp, which makes a significant difference in the opening moments of entering a room.

While all of the challenges we attempted at Escape Arcade functioned as intended during our visit, we did encounter an issue in a couple of rooms that prevented us from scoring higher. There is a noticeable level of sound bleed throughout the venue, with music and shouts of excitement from neighbouring rooms carrying across. This will vary depending on how busy the venue is, but during our visit, it made the pre-recorded prompts in several games, most notably Steam Train Speed Train and The Museum, incredibly difficult to hear.

Photo: Immersive Rumours

Beyond Escape Arcade, the rest of Enigma Quest’s Chancery Lane venue has recently undergone a refurbishment, transforming the bar and waiting area from a fairly plain lobby into a futuristic starship interior reminiscent of Bridge Command’s in-world bar, The Mess.

It is a significant upgrade over the previous space and has the potential to turn a visit to Enigma Quest from a quick hour-long activity into a full afternoon or evening out, particularly when taking into account the bar’s extensive themed cocktail menu, The Comet Club, their in-house pizzeria, and the three traditional escape rooms also available on-site.

Photo: Enigma Quest

While not without its flaws, Escape Arcade’s approach to competitive gameplay ensures that the 60 minutes spent attempting to prove yourself to EQIC are consistently engaging and, above all, a great deal of fun. For those seeking an escape room-style experience that can be shaped around personal preferences, Escape Arcade is likely to meet your expectations.

Following our visit, we found ourselves placed fifth on the leaderboard for the day, which surely must have caught the attention of the higher-ups at EQIC. They know where to find us if new operatives are required...

★★★½

Total score: 83717

[Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review]

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Enigma Quest's Escape Arcade runs at 86 Fetter Lane near Chancery Lane station. Tickets are priced from £25.00 per person and can be booked via enigmaquests.london