Escape rooms in NYC offer experiences where teams are “locked” in a room and have limited time to decipher clues, puzzles, and riddles. Most escape rooms have 60-minute time limits. The maximum number of players depends on individual escape rooms. However, if you have a large team, many escape rooms will stagger room times to accommodate all players.
These rooms are the parent category to Manhattan escape rooms.
This list includes:
- NYC escape games
- downtown NYC escape rooms
- New York City escape rooms
- escape rooms in New York
Here we go!
List of escape rooms in NYC
Here is a list of escape rooms in NYC that take escape artists from haunted houses to jails to college dorms.
1. Beat The Bomb
Beat The Bomb is a unique blend of immersive theater, gaming technology, 90s game shows, and an escape room. During the game, you will evade lasers, decipher puzzles, and disarm a paint bomb.
Beat The Bomb offers two experiences dubbed Mission 01 and Mission 02. The goal of each mission is to complete five stages of time tasks, games, and puzzles before a giant paint bomb explodes.
Escape Time: 60-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: Beat The Bomb recommends up to six players for each mission but can accommodate larger groups.
For more information on Beat The Bomb.
2. Unreal Escapes
Staten Island’s Unreal Escapes has two unique escape rooms:
- Legendary Disco 54: The club’s owners haven’t played well with the Feds, and the disco is being shut down. You have one hour to make your mark before the Feds shut the club down!
- Battleship: The enemy has destroyed the entire U.S. Navy’s fleet in a surprise attack. It is up to you to destroy the enemy and save the U.S. before the enemy fleet arrives.
Escape Time: 60-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: The Legendary Disco room can accommodate up to fourteen players, whereas the Battleship room can accommodate up to ten players.
For more information on Unreal Escapes.
3. Brooklyn Escape Room
One of the spookiest New York City escape rooms is Brooklyn Escape Room. Brooklyn Escape Room offers one haunting house escape. In this escape room, you find yourself trapped in a spooky house with a spirit guide. You have a small window of time to escape, or you will spend eternity as the spirit’s playmate.
Escape Time: 60-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: This escape room can host up to eight players.
For more information on Brooklyn Escape Room.
4. Komnata Quest
Komnata’s Quest rooms make you feel like you are a blockbuster movie hero with high-tech puzzles and custom-made escape room props. The rooms include:
- The City Of Ashes: This is a horror-based escape room not recommended for pregnant women or children. A road trip has gone wrong, and you find yourself in a peculiar town filled with thick fog and haunting noises. You have one hour to find your way out of town before bad things happen.
- Hex Of The Chinese Jewelry Box: A renowned archeologist and Professor of Chinese history are dead one week after finding a strange Chinese artifact. You must find the artifact’s secret and break its curse before it is too late!
- Doctor Frankenstein: Doctor Victor Frankenstein’s experiments have created a space-time continuum conundrum. You have one hour to bring Frankenstein’s monster to life and restore the universe’s balance.
Escape Time: 60-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: The City of Ashes and Doctor Frankenstein can accommodate up to eight players, whereas Hex of the Chinese Jewelry Box can accommodate a maximum of six participants. Komnata does offer options for larger groups.
For more information on Komnata.
5. BrainXcape
One of the more popular downtown NYC escape rooms is BrainXcape. Located in the financial district, BrainXcape is the brainchild of set designers experienced in haunted houses and Broadway plays. The rooms include:
- The Haunted Hotel: Spirits roam the halls, and paintings are not paintings in the elegant Grange Hotel. You must to escape before the hotel’s dark past gets you!
- Rikers,1932: This is a classic prison-themed room filled with imposing walls and echoing guard footsteps. You have one hour to escape the madness and find freedom!
- Game of Gold: You and your group must navigate through a dark castle on a quest to recapture a throne
Escape Time: 60-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: The Haunted Hotel and Rikers, 1932 experiences can accommodate up to ten people, whereas Game of Gold can accommodate up to five people.
For more information on BrainXcape.
6. PanIQ Escape Room
PanIQ Escape Room is an escape room pioneer and mogul with worldwide escape room experiences. PanIQ’s New York franchise offers the following escape rooms:
- Wild West: Charlie Saloon has accumulated a $10,000 stake from a big poker game. You have one hour to get out of the town’s jail and steal the money before the law gets it.
- Pyramid Heist: In this adventure, you play on a team of archeologists who have stolen and sold the Golden Ankh of Rah. Unbeknownst to you, the Ankh curses those who have taken it from its tomb. You have one hour to return the Ankh to its home and remove the curse!
Escape Time: 60-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: Both rooms can accommodate up to seven players. PanIQ also has large group options with ten or more players.
For more information on PanIQ Escape Room.
7. Escape The Room
Escape The Room has many rooms and themes that will delight escape room artists. Their experiences include:
- The Submarine: You descend to the ocean floor and have to find your way back to the surface before your oxygen runs out.
- Jurassic Escape: You have one hour to save New York City from cloned, weaponized dinosaurs and to stop the evil corporation who cloned them.
- The Agency: You have to complete a classified mission before your existence ceases to exist.
- The Clock Tower: You have to travel through time and save a timekeeper trapped in a malfunctioning clock tower before time runs out.
Escape Time: 60-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: Jurassic Escape, The Submarine, The Agency, and The Clock Tower can accommodate up to eight players.
For more information on Escape The Room.
8. Mission Escape Games
One of the fun downtown NYC escape rooms is Mission Escape Games. Mission Escape Games offers four unique rooms that include:
- End of Days A & B: Humanity lies in your hands in this apocalyptic-style escape room. Your task is to find the top-secret mission’s special object in its creator’s workshop before the world ends.
- Escape the Hideout: The Mystery of Henry Jekyll: Dr. Jekyll acted odd for weeks before disappearing. Now, a mysterious, crazy fellow has been creating mayhem around town. You must find out what happened to Dr. Jekyll and stop the mayhem before it is too late.
- Cyberpunk Carbon: Your mission is to infiltrate evil Cyber Industries’ headquarters and destroy company data before the corporation controls all humanity.
Escape Time: 60-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: End of Days A, Escape The Hideout, and Cyberpunk Carbon can accommodate up to ten players. End of Days B can accommodate up to six players.
For more information on Mission Escape Games.
9. Hour To Exit
Twenty miles north of Rockefeller Center is Hour To Exit escape rooms. The company offers four exciting escape rooms, including:
- Pandora’s Box: This escape room has a Greek Mythology spin where you must shut Pandora’s box and rid Zeus’ kingdom of evil spirits before time runs out.
- Elude The Illusionist: A famous stage magician’s competition has been disappearing in this escape room. It is up to you to sneak into the stage magician’s dressing room and find out if he is responsible for his rival’s disappearances before another magician disappears.
- Dorm Rules: This escape room will bring you back to your college days. The Dorm RA is going home for the weekend, and there is a major party planned in the common room. The RA will be back in one hour, giving you one hour to find the common room key and get out of the RA’s room before she returns.
Escape Time: 60-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: Pandora’s Box and Elude The Illusionist rooms can accommodate up to eight players, whereas Dorm Rules can accommodate up to four players.
For more information on Hour To Exit.
10. MyssTic Rooms
One of the most recognized escape rooms in New York is Myss Tic Rooms. This attraction is a Golden Lock award winner with two signature escape rooms. The experiences include:
- Montauk Project: Debunked Montauk Air Force Station turned Camp Hero State Park has been experiencing abnormal activity. People are either disappearing into surrounding forests or running away. You must pinpoint the source of the unusual activities and any linking evidence.
- Ghost Light: Vaudeville actress Olive Thomas died under suspicious circumstances. Now, she is haunting the theater and flirting with all the men. Then, at night, when the theater is empty, she comes out to perform with her spirit friends. To keep the spirits happy, you must clear the theater before Olive’s and her spirit friends’ performance.
Escape Time: 60-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: both rooms can accommodate up to eight players each.
For more information on MyssTic Rooms.
11. OMEscape New York
One of the more popular NYC escape games is OMEscape. This attraction is perfect for team building and offers three escape rooms including:
- Laboratory of Biohazard: The New York City Police Department has confirmed that evil Dr. Snake has a secret laboratory in the depths of the city’s sewage system. He is formulating a new neurotoxin and is planning to release it into the city’s water. You must find the laboratory and a cure for the toxin before Dr. Snake returns.
- The Penitentiary: Serial killer, “Night Stalker,” disappeared from Saint Temple Prison using the jail’s blueprint. The clues the Night Stalker left behind are your only chance to escape the prison.
- Room X (Time Travel): You find yourself trapped in a time continuum. To escape, you must find the missing Omega Keys, repair the time engine, and return to the 21st century.
Escape Time: 70-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: The Laboratory of Biohazard can accommodate up to eight players, The Penitentiary can accommodate up to 14 players, and Room X can accommodate up to ten players.
For more information on OMEscape New York.
12. Clue Chase
Clue Chase prides itself in offering custom props and sets that immerse escape goers into their games. Clue Chase’s experiences include:
- Moonshine Madness: This room transports you back to a 1920s speakeasy where you play the role of a drink expert investigating a drink that has been causing odd side effects. Prohibition is in full swing, so you need to solve the case before the cops arrive!
- Houdini’s Workshop: Famous illusionist, Harry Houdini, has found a person with actual supernatural abilities. Houdini wrote this person’s name down before his death. You must break into Houdini’s workshop and locate the mystery person’s name before it is lost to history.
- Pirates of the Bermuda Triangle: A mutinous crew has locked up their ship captain. Now, the ship is both crewless and headed towards dangerous underwater boulders. You have 60 minutes to board the boat, listen to the captain’s instructions, and steer the ship to safety.
- Guardian of Gotham: You must enter a rogue time traveler’s lair and stop him from misusing his superpowers over Manhattan.
Clue Chase also offers three virtual escape rooms.
Escape Time: 60-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: Each of Clue Chase’s rooms can accommodate up to ten players.
For more information on Clue Chase.
13. Puzzle Out Escape Room
A few subway stops from New York City, Puzzle Out Escape Room offers a host of fun escape games at multiple locations. Included in these experiences are:
- Crypto Heist: You must hack into a notorious arms dealer’s digital wallet and empty all of his bitcoin.
- Grand Theft Jersey City: You and your team have 60 minutes to escape a disabled vault filled with jewelry, cash, and other valuables.
- Haunted Estates: A real estate agent specializing in haunted houses has gone into hiding. He claims that a dark spirit from one of his haunted houses has taken over his office. Your mission is to rid the office of the spirit!
- Architect’s Studio: Your client and his rival are scrambling to design the world’s tallest building. You have one hour to sneak into the rival’s studio and find his building’s height so your client can outdo him!
Escape Time: 60-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: Crypto Heist can accommodate up to 100 players. Grand Theft Jersey City can accommodate up to 30 players. Haunted Estates can hold up to eight players. Architects Studio can hold up to 6 players.
For more information on Puzzle Out Escape Room.
14. The Great Escape Room
The Great Escape Room is perfect for corporate parties and team-building events. The location has two 60-minute rooms, including:
- Poker Night At The President’s Bunker: You and your team are on a private tour of the White House when the Presidential bunker goes on lockdown. You have one hour to escape the bunker without any help from the outside world!
- Escape Artist: The Final Séance: Harry Houdini’s beloved wife, Bess, has been trying to contact him through a yearly séance. Each séance has been unsuccessful, and she is holding her last hope. You have volunteered to help Bess contact Harry in her last attempt to contact the love of her life.
Escape Time: 60-minute time limits.
Player Accommodation: Poker Night can accommodate up to ten players, whereas Escape Artist can accommodate up to eight players.
For more information on The Great Escape Room.
Conclusion
NYC and its metro area are not shy of escape rooms. Before choosing an escape room for your team, get a general idea of your team’s interests. For example, ask your team if they prefer a spy-related, haunted, sci-fi, or science-related experience. Also, be mindful of where your team lives. If most of your team lives in the city, then an escape room in downtown NYC makes sense. However, if most of your team lives in a specific borough or close suburb, choose an escape room in that area.
Next, check out this list of the best escape room kits, and this list of escape games for iOS.
FAQ: Escape rooms in NYC
Here are some commonly asked questions about escape rooms in NYC.
What are the best escape rooms in NYC?
The best escape rooms in NYC are Puzzle Out Escape Room, Mission Escape Games, and Myss Tic Rooms.
How much do escape rooms in NYC cost?
Prices vary from escape room to escape room. Most escape rooms, however, start around $30.00 and go up to $90.00 per person. There are also escape room companies that offer team and corporate prices.
How can I find escape rooms in NYC?
The easiest way to find escape rooms in NYC is using a search engine or a search engine map. For example, type “escape rooms” in Google Maps.