Escape rooms in Chicago are group activities where you solve puzzles and follow clues to try to escape a room. These activities get teams interacting on unique tasks while strengthening their communication skills and building interpersonal connections.
This article includes:
- Chicago escape games
- downtown Chicago escape rooms
- escape rooms in the Chicago suburbs
- hardest Chicago escape rooms
- Chicago, Illinois escape room games
- escape games near Chicago
Here are your best choices for escape rooms in The Windy City!
List of escape rooms in Chicago
From spy intrigue to intergalactic adventure to time-traveling crime fighting, there is an impressive array of escape rooms in Chicago for your team to sample. The following selections are some of your best bets.
1. Combat Chicago
Three wildly different themes await your team at Combat Chicago. Toxic Rush challenges players to stop evil Mayor Mansfield from poisoning the water of Black Oak. Crazy Carl’s Bunker dares all who enter to decrypt Carl’s security traps to restore power and make it out alive. Lilly’s House brings players to a haunted home where recovering a spirit’s lost possessions is the only way to dispel the ghost.
You can book experiences for teams of up to 16. The company also hosts laser tag on the premises for a blended gaming experience.
Learn more: Combat Chicago.
2. The Great Escape Room
This innovative escape room company offers three escape rooms with clever themes like Surgical Crisis and Poker Night at the President’s Bunker. For the sleuths in your group, there are also two Sherlock Holmes-themed scavenger hunt rooms. You can also schedule a mobile escape room experience that will come to your workplace with team play for a minimum group size of 49 players.
Learn more: The Great Escape Room Chicago.
3. Locked Chicago
Located in nearby Evanston, Locked tweaks the escape room formula using high-concept themes. Rather than escaping, your team collaborates on alternative goals such as finding a sacred drum that will usher in world peace, preventing the collapse of a sinister space void, and restoring a galactic defense system on a faraway planet. Locked can host up to 40 people every hour for a teambuilding experience that will fit groups of all sizes.
Learn more: Locked Chicago.
4. PanIQ Escape Rooms
The range of PanIQ’s themes makes these Chicago escape games tempting options for puzzle-solvers. At their Logan Square location, players can put their heads together to escape a medieval torture chamber, combine their code-decrypting abilities to prevent an attack on London, blend their mental magic to banish an evil sorcerer, or work together to become all-powerful wizards. The location at Fulton Market offers a voodoo adventure, a bioweapon thriller, a mafia battle, and a prison escape.
In addition to their escape rooms, PanIQ offers a stand-alone team building event called the Game, a 60-minute experience designed to test your team’s problem-solving skills.
Learn more: PanIQ Escape Rooms.
5. Escape Factor
Four 60-minute adventures are available at Escape Factor, though not all center around escape. The most imaginative in the bunch is Bonus Fun Time Game Show Challenge, in which teams race to win the grand prize in the bonus round of a vintage game show. Players can also time travel in The Timekeeper’s Trapped, retrieve stolen treasures in Treehouse Raid at Fort Knocks and save a cemetery in Ghosts in the Graveyard. Reservations for all four rooms can accommodate up to 30 guests, which allows larger teams to participate simultaneously.
Learn more: Escape Factor.
6. No Escape
Located in Buffalo Grove, 35 minutes northeast of Chicago, No Escape is an ultra-modern escape room company. Their escape room themes include School of Magic, a Harry Potter-style wizardry battle; the Police Station, a quest to prove your innocence, and the Law Breakers, a continuation of the Police Station that follows the story into a prison setting. This facility also offers eight virtual reality escape rooms that allow teams of up to three players each. In addition, teams can choose from a variety of fantasy, science fiction, and horror themes that allow digital escape room experiences for multiple players.
Learn more: No Escape.
7. Art of Escape Room
This downtown Chicago escape rooms provider prides itself on its unique, well-executed themes. Your team can judge for themselves by tackling Casino Heist, where success depends on robbing a mafia casino to repay the Godfather. Players can also brave a blizzard to battle the rising dead in Kingdom of Night. Rooms can hold teams of between two and eight players. All games are private, allowing your team to have these challenging games to themselves.
Learn more: Art of Escape Room.
8. Mind Trap
The private rooms at Mind Trap require a minimum of two players for their mind-bending puzzle-solving, though full accommodations can admit groups between 10 and 150 people. Crime buffs in your crew can plot a robbery in Mafia Heist or plan a prison break in Locked-in Supermax, while the nautical-minded will enjoy escaping from a crashed cargo ship in Storm Surge. Once the team is finally free, you can enjoy drinks and snacks at the neighboring Poor Boys Restaurant.
Learn more: Mind Trap.
9. Legendary Escape Rooms
Escape rooms in the Chicago suburbs include this provider’s locations in Aurora and Plainfield, where teams of up to eight players can enjoy the fun and challenge of earning their escape.
In the Aurora location, the Heart of the Dragon takes your team inside a prestigious wizarding academy to complete a final group project. The Mermaid’s Escape requires your group to help release a magical sea creature from her prison on a pirate ship. With Kraken Casino, your crew can travel to a dystopic future to stop an evil figure before he takes over the world, while Uncle Tick-Tock’s Circus Escape puts your associates on the hunt for a valuable inheritance. Finally, teams visiting the Plainfield location can experience Witching Hour, a curse-reversing horror adventure, Traumatized, a serial killer thriller, and X-Cape Z-51, a race to stop a zombie infection-armed warhead.
Learn more: Legendary Escape Rooms.
10. Escape Artistry
If you appreciate a company that supports its community, then check into Escape Artistry. This company works with local artists and organizations to provide fundraising experiences and support charitable causes. In addition, you can customize your team building escape room event with help from Escape Artistry’s dedicated staff for a tailor-made experience.
Players at Escape Artistry receive the title of Agent, and an overarching time travel theme connects Agents throughout all games. Adventures like the futuristic Operation G.R.A.N.I.E., the 1982-centered serial killer horror of the Dollhouse, and the early 20th-century pirate adventure on Lake Michigan, Roaring Dan’s Pirate Dungeon, are all oriented around Chicago and the surrounding area for an added layer of regional spirit.
Learn more: Escape Artistry.
11. Golden Escape Rooms
You can retreat to the fun of puzzle-solving in a team environment with Golden Escape Rooms in person or online. Their 60-minute live escape rooms test your team’s resolve with a haunted house experience in the House That Spirits Built and a quest to find a candy master’s latest and greatest recipe in Sugar’s Sweet Shoppe.
These rooms are available for groups of between two and ten players. If your team is remote, then you can try their virtual point-and-click escape rooms, which accommodate an unlimited number of players and are available in several entertaining themes.
Learn more: Golden Escape Rooms.
12. South Side Escape Rooms
With South Side’s games, escape isn’t always the goal. Their Clue-style mysteries drop players into a murderous manor with one victim and many suspects. Your team must identify the murderer, the location, and the weapon before the timer sounds. The twist: guests can play in the same room more than once and find different puzzles and outcomes each time! Though there are two rooms available, each a separate volume in the collection. The company recommends that players experience volume 1 before booking volume 2.
Learn more: South Side Escape Rooms.
13. Escape The Room
Escape the Room in Oakbrook offers some of the hardest Chicago escape rooms. Their 20% success rate suggests players might have a challenge ahead of them! With six unique themes, including Cartman’s Escape Room featuring characters from South Park, options range from a perilous subterranean journey, a jaw-dropping dinosaur encounter, and a harrowing nuclear detonation scenario.
These rooms are great for teams of up to ten players, though you can book events for up to 200 players.
Learn more: Escape The Room.
14. The Quandary
If your team has an affinity for nostalgic ‘90s movies, the Quandary is the ideal escape room experience for. Teams engage in code-cracking, riddle-solving fun as they relive a Jurassic Park-style dinosaur adventure, a Home Alone-themed house invasion, or a ‘90s-themed escape room that takes players back to a loved decade. All rooms are private and can hold eight to ten players.
Learn more: The Quandary.
15. Mobile Room Escape
This convenient escape room provider brings your team a mobile experience that travels the Chicagoland area. With comfortable climate-controlled trailers, The superhero adventure the Battle of Justopolous lets your team battle comic book villains, while Saving Oceanika takes them to the waters surrounding the island Pulau as they work to stop rising ocean temperatures.
As part of their team building package, Mobile Room Escape offers a pre-experience conversation called L.O.C.K., which emphasizes leadership, overcoming obstacles, communication, and kindness to ensure a collaborative escape room adventure.
Learn more: Mobile Room Escape.
16. Fox in a Box
Ranked the 1 escape room in Chicago, Fox in a Box has locations all around the globe that host team building events for groups of up to 35 players. Your crew can become thieves in the Bank, criminals plotting an escape in the Prison, a special ops team working to stop a nuclear launch in the Bunker, or victims trying to escape a serial killer in Zodiac.
With 60 minutes of playtime in each room, a large team can break into four smaller groups, each taking on a separate adventure.
Learn more: Fox in a Box.
17. 60 To Escape
With six distinct themes ranging from a search for a missing arcade owner to a quest for a precious relic in a ruined temple, 60 To Escape provides Illinois escape rooms that all feature a sense of theatrical fun. As the company name implies, these games are 60 minutes of brain-busting interactive teamwork that work best played by groups of six to eight players. However, the company offers corporate and teambuilding events that may accommodate larger groups.
Learn more: 60 To Escape.
18. Escapology
Of the various escape games near Chicago, Escapology in Orland Park presents your team a thrilling opportunity to work together to improve communication, work on collaboration and productivity, and learn divergent thinking techniques. Players can immerse themselves in a Scooby Doo-style mystery as they search for a missing baroness or join a team of scientists creating an antidote to a deadly virus that threatens the world. Games begin at moderate difficulty, though most rate higher, so advise your team to prepare for a challenge!
Learn more: Escapology.
19. Mastermind
The interactive mental adventures of Mastermind in Schaumburg might find you on the floor in search of clues. Teams should wear comfy clothing to tackle Sorcerer’s Secret, Outbreak: Find the Cure, Bank Heist, or Lost in Time. Each room can accommodate up to eight players, though booking multiple rooms means a more significant discount with each game added.
In addition to the in-person escape rooms, you can choose from nine online escape room adventures featuring live actors to play with teams with members working in remote locations.
Learn more: Mastermind.
20. Clued In
This escape room provider in the Glen Ellyn area outside of Chicago provides hour-long experiences in straightforward settings. Your team can solve board game and video game puzzles to save the mayor in the Game Master, race the clock to escape an evil entity in the Asylum, or search for blackmail material in Double Agent. In addition, the Asylum can include a live actor to ramp up the immersive effect of the room.
Games will accommodate teams of six to nine players, though, with multiple rooms, you can book a corporate event that gets the whole team in on the escape room action.
Learn more: Clued In.
Conclusion
Escape rooms in Chicago can get your team thinking and engaging in new ways. These attractions provide great ice breaker opportunities when new workers join the crew and offer a mental shift that can help associates refine their problem-solving capabilities. Though the games pose challenges and players work to beat the clock, escape rooms are engaging and entertaining settings for inspiring teams to interact creatively.
Next, check out escape room tactics to try, and this list of tips for solving escape rooms.
FAQ: Escape rooms in Chicago, Illinois
Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about escape rooms in Chicago.
What are the best escape rooms in Chicago?
Fox in a Box, Escape Artistry, the Escape Game, and Team vs. Time rank among the best escape rooms in Chicago. These companies provide immersive experiences with incredible attention to detail, innovative themes, and puzzles that challenge players in exciting ways.
What are the hardest escape rooms in Chicago?
The Bank by Fox in a Box and Prison Escape by the Escape Game rank as some of the hardest escape rooms in Chicago, according to escape room reviewers World of Escapes.
How do I find Chicago escape games?
To find the best Chicago escape game for your team, consider your workers’ locations. Then, search a central point where your team can meet and research which escape games are available in the area. If your team is unable to attend in person, then you can find virtual escape rooms available through several companies. These games bring the thrill of escape room games to an online environment that team members can play from wherever they are.
How much do Chicago escape rooms cost?
Prices for Chicago escape rooms range from $15 to $40 per player. There are discounts available for larger parties and teambuilding events, with reduced prices either per player or per room, depending on the company.