The Sacrifice

Mission Escape - George Street (Sydney, Australia)

Time limit: 100 minutes

Age limit: Suitable for 15+ (at least 3 players 15+ required; flexible)

Player limit: 3-7

Difficulty: 4/5

Awards: TERPECA Nominee (2022-2023), Best of Morty (2023)

Date visited: June 2025

When we first started playing escape rooms, "scary" and "live actors" were two things we wanted no part of. Over time, however, my stance on that has softened, especially as experienced players have told me that these are some of the best rooms!

Enter The Sacrifice at Mission Escape, one of the best-rated rooms in Sydney that is both scary and has a live actor. But due to E's continued aversion and the age restrictions, I thought it would be a few more years before I could play it. Well, it turned out the age rule — like at most escape room establishments — is flexible, especially our GM for Trapped told us that Sacrifice wasn't too terrifying... at least when compared to Mission's other scary room, Intruders.

Not long after, the Escape Room Explorer, one of the best Aussie escape room reviewers around, told me that he was heading to Sydney to play some rooms and needed numbers for The Sacrifice and Intruders. I immediately took that as a sign from the heavens and said we were in!

I'm glad to report that our first official collab was a blast. The Mission Escape rooms we had played to date ranged from solid to excellent, but The Sacrifice was clearly in a class of its own. The Japanese yokai (monster) mythology horror theme was something I was familiar with and really liked, and I could tell a lot of thought was put into the design of the theming and atmosphere. The props and decor of each of the areas throughout the room were generally strong, with some more detailed and realistic than others, though nothing felt out of place.

As with other Mission Escape rooms, The Sacrifice contained a lot of hi-tech and mechanical wizardry, both in terms of the delivering the theatrics and the puzzles. The lighting and sound design played a big part in shaping the atmosphere, and it was the clever use of complete darkness that provided some of the tensest moments.

The puzzles were probably the weakest aspect of The Sacrifice. Tech puzzles can get finicky or unresponsive at times, and there was one puzzle where our GM had to confirm that we had gotten it right but had to do it slower to ensure the mechanism was triggered properly. There were also several task-based puzzles that simply involved following prompts in a specific order, which admittedly are not my favourite type because I find them repetitive and less intellectually stimulating. Fortunately, outside of the task-based puzzles, The Sacrifice also had many other types of puzzles that I did find quite satisfying.

However, what made The Sacrifice really stand out was its immense size. It's a huge escape room and it absolutely felt like it. The size of each area was unremarkable, but there were just so many areas and transition spaces! Moreover, the designers did a fantastic job in utilising the space, creating magical and ingenious ways to move us from location to location that provided some of the best surprises and "wow" moments. It genuinely made us feel like we were on an epic journey that took us deeper and deeper into the mythology.

So, was it scary? Personally, I thought it was nowhere near as terrifying as I had expected. At the end of the day, The Sacrifice is still an escape room where the main aim is to solve puzzles. The live actor stuff played an important role in the narrative, but it's only a very minor part of the overall experience. As is often the case, it was the creepy atmosphere and the anticipation of something happening that kept us in fear and on edge the entire time. Z (13 years old) said he didn't find it scary at all, while J (nearly 12) was a little more tight-lipped but still loved the experience.

Ultimately, The Sacrifice totally deserves all the hype and accolades. I loved the interesting theme and story, the expertly crafted atmosphere, the hi-tech puzzles and theatrics, and the numerous "wow" moments, not to mention the enormous space that we got to roam around in. We ended up escaping with just under 34 minutes to spare, and I actually wished we could have been stuck in there for a lot longer.

Escape time: 66 minutes out of 100 minutes

Theming	Atmosphere	Puzzles	Creativity	Fun
A	A	B	A	A

Verdict: A sprawling, tech-driven Japanese horror journey infused with a few scares and whole lot of escape room magic.

OVERALL RANK:

H	Z	J
A	A	A+