Escape This - Sydney CBD (Sydney, Australia)
Time limit: 60 minutes
Age limit: None (recommended 9+)
Player limit: 2-8
Difficulty: 7/10
Date visited: January 2025
Escape This is one of the biggest and most popular escape room companies in Perth. They first expanded to the Sydney market by taking over Room Eight on Manly Beach, but the reviews for those rooms appear to be mediocre. I’ve heard rumblings that the new branch did not receive a lot of support from the head office (though this may have changed since).
Either way, I was still a little excited — albeit wary — when I heard they had set up a new location in Sydney’s CBD. This was an ambitious undertaking, as they opened with 3 rooms in October 2024 and already had 5 rooms by the time we visited in January 2025. According to their website, they have another 7 rooms planned at the same location, and they also have a quiz room called Quizy that is already up and running.
With so many rooms rolling out in rapid succession, I was somewhat sceptical that Escape This could deliver the same kind of intimate, bespoke experiences crafted by our favourite escape room establishments, whose owners are typically enthusiasts who became small business owners.
Yet, from what I saw on Escape Room website, the theming and props of their rooms looked incredible. Having already been surprised so many times on our journey, I didn’t want to be an escape room snob and judge a room before playing it. So we ended up booking The Wizard’s Chamber, one of the only non-horror games available.
With E working, we recruited my niece C again to form a team of 4. I told the kids to temper their expectations when we walked into the large foyer area with plenty of tables, stools, and lockers. With 12 rooms planned and so much space dedicated to the waiting area, surely each room could not be very big?
Of course, I was wrong. The Wizard’s Chamber was a very decently sized room with multiple spaces. The theming and props stretched from floor to ceiling and were cinematic and gorgeous. I think it could have doubled as a set for a scene in a Harry Potter movie. Moreover, there were flashing lights and booming sounds, adding to the overall atmosphere and immersion. The puzzles were mostly infused with tech and featured minimal padlocks/keys, matching the wizardry theme. The hint system required pulling on a flag by the door, which would activate a voice-recorded hint (though we never tried it).
All of the above suggests that The Wizard’s Chamber should be an awesome room, but ironically I found it lacking that special “wizardry” that would have made it a truly magical experience.
First of all, the room was unnecessarily dark. Our GM said they forbade phones in their rooms partly because they want to maintain the lighting design, but there were times when I thought a phone light really would have helped because it was quite hard to see certain crucial objects at times.
Secondly, and in my opinion the biggest problem with the room, was that there’s simply not enough challenging puzzles to fill up the 60-minute game time. Looking back, we counted about 10-12 puzzles overall, which is not great but also not terrible if the puzzles are challenging. However, despite this being rated a 7 out of 10 for difficulty, most of the puzzles were very easy/obvious or were single-step puzzles that did not require too much thinking. Our team might be more experienced than average players, but we are by no means experts — we usually require a hint or two for more difficult rooms and never come close to challenging room records.
Yet, with a team of 4 including 3 kids, we managed to finish the room in under 35 minutes without breaking a sweat or needing a hint, AND that was with us being stuck on the final puzzle for 10 whole minutes! In other words, if we had been going all out or were a little sharper in figuring out the trick to that last puzzle, we could’ve out been in about 25 minutes. I’m sure experienced enthusiasts could beat the room in under 20 minutes.
While I liked the quality of the props and still had fun, the room felt like a missed opportunity, especially because there was plenty of space for more puzzles. Many of the drawers and some bookshelf spaces were not utilised, and a few of the spaces/props only contained one puzzle when they could have easily fit a few more. When we finished End of the Road at Next Level in under half the allotted time, we still felt satisfied because we were challenged and “busy” every minute we were in the room. For The Wizard’s Chamber, we walked out wishing there had been more.
The Wizard’s Chamber is by no means a bad room. In fact, newcomers might enjoy it a lot. After all, the theming really is gorgeous. But having experienced some very challenging, ingenious, and magical rooms in Sydney alone, we felt this was not quite in the same league. But look, not every escape room needs to be mind-blowing to be worth playing. If Escape This releases another room that generates a bit of positive buzz (for instance, I hear their Entombed room in Perth is fantastic), we will definitely be back to give it another crack.
Escape time: 35 minutes out of 60
Verdict: A pretty room that’s best suited for kids and/or beginners.
Rating: 8.15
Player | Theming | Atmosphere | Puzzles | Creativity | Fun | Average |
H | 9.5 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7.9 |
Z | 9.5 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 8.1 |
J | 9.5 | 9.5 | 7 | 7.5 | 8.5 | 8.4 |
C | 9.5 | 9.5 | 7 | 6.5 | 8.5 | 8.2 |
Rating | 8.15 |
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