Escape rooms have blown-up in popularity across the UK over the last few years, and London is one of the best places for them. Now, the escape room buzz is extending beyond confined brick and mortar locations, with some people using the whole of the capital as their puzzle-filled playground.
If you love adventure, and you’re looking for a different experience to the traditional escape room, you may want to check out the outdoor escape games that are making waves among groups who want to bond over shared challenges.
Escape Room Boom Extending to the Outside World
The rise of escape rooms in the real world could be attributed to the popularity of the adventure and mystery genres in entertainment. Throughout history, films and television shows about solving mysteries and escaping situations have been prevalent. Sherlock Holmes is one of the best-known characters of all time, and modern offerings like Knives Out and its sequels have attracted a lot of positive feedback.
In the iGaming industry, these themes are incredibly popular as well. The Action Bank slot is a prime example of a game that draws on the widespread appeal of cracking codes and trying to land life-changing sums of money. The game is slightly different from the idea of an escape room, as it involves breaking into a safe and plundering its riches.
Escape rooms started to blow up in the 2010s as a way for people to take these online, solo experiences into the real world and enjoy them alongside others. Now, there are a whopping 233 escape rooms around London, making it one of the premier destinations in the world for this activity. This explosion of venues highlights the ever-growing interest in these experiences and explains why the activity is starting to move into outdoor settings as well.
London’s Outdoor Escape Adventures
If you love escape rooms and want to challenge yourself to something slightly different, there are a few outdoor escape adventures that you could check out. One of the best-known examples is Moriarty’s Game from HiddenCity, which has been described as an escape room without walls.
The adventure takes place across London, and your job is to use your smartphone to hunt for clues. The game is adapted for different seasons as well, with Easter offering players the chance to find chocolate eggs on their way around.
There are plenty of other options to choose from as well, all with their own unique themes and led by different companies. CityDays offers A Forbidden Fayre, which is set in Mayfair and features several clever riddles. There’s also Glitch Hunters from clueQuest, which is a tech-themed outdoor mission. Teams have to work together to resolve a digital crisis by looking for clues in the city surroundings.
If you love mystery and adventure and already feel like you’ve had your fill of escape rooms, it could be time to take the experience into the outside world. London is becoming one of the leading spots for outdoor escape room experiences, and the trend is likely to get bigger in the years ahead.
