Outbreak

Labyrinth Escape Rooms (Parramatta, Australia)

Time limit: 60

Age limit: None

Player limit: 2-8 (recommend 4+)

Difficulty: Hard

Date visited: January 2026

Outbreak was our third and final room at Labyrinth, and also reportedly their hardest, with an escape rate of about 10% (according to our GM)! How did we go?

• This was easily my favourite of the three rooms we did at Labyrinth, though it was not without flaws. But as an escape room experience, it felt like a step up compared to their earlier rooms, with more immersive theming, atmosphere, props, effects, and cinematic moments.

• It had a fairly typical post-apocalyptic theme that revolved around finding a serum in an underground vault to cure a deadly virus that decimated the world. Having played Mexican Cartel and Game Night earlier, I had modest expectations for the theming but was pleasantly surprised. Outbreak had floor-to-ceiling theming that made it feel and look like a bunker — perhaps not a real one but one you might see in a video game.

• The room had several areas and was quite spacious. Not all the puzzles were linear, so it was possible to split up and explore or tackle different puzzles in smaller groups.

• The puzzles were solid but not a standout aspect of the room. There was a good mix, including hunt and seek, mechanical, and hi-tech puzzles. The signposting could have been a bit stronger, since one issue we had was order and flow. As the puzzles were scattered across the room and in some cases across different spaces, we ended up solving some puzzles and finding certain objects earlier than we should have, which messed up the flow and caused a bit of confusion.

• There was one puzzle towards the beginning that required quite a bit of math and took us a long time because the correct approach somewhat ambiguous, resulting in a guess and check approach that used up a significant amount of time. We did ask for one clue later on, though it was not really needed as we had gotten the right code but did not align the lock properly 🤦‍♂️.

• There was also a reason why they recommended 4+ players, as there was one particular puzzle that required multiple sets of hands. Unfortunately for us, there was a tech issue with this puzzle and the GM had to bypass it after multiple failures that wasted about 5 minutes.

• These issues didn't affect our overall enjoyment too much. What elevated this game above the other offerings at Labyrinth for me were its "cool" moments, of which I counted at least three. I consider "cool" moments a step below "wow" moments, but it's still always nice to have them in an escape room.

Escape time: 50 minutes and 27 seconds

Theming	Atmosphere	Puzzles	Creativity	Fun
A	A-	B+	B+	A-

Verdict: A pretty fun post-apocalyptic room with strong theming, tech, and props, plus a few memorable moments that make this Labyrinth's most polished game.

OVERALL RANK:

H	E	Z	J
A-	B+	A-	A-