Our 5th anniversary is just around the corner, so we want to celebrate all things Escape Games! We thought it was a good time to share a little of our history with you. So, here’s the short version of the legacy of Escape Games Canada.
Five years ago, on June 15, 2014, Escape Games Canada first opened its doors. Back then, our fledgeling facility only had three missions: Mayan Curse, Le Voleur du Diamant, and Escape from Bleak Prison. (Yes, Prison has been a fixture since the very beginning). These three missions offered a variety of themes and difficulties. During that first year, we did things very differently; our Build Team designed and constructed puzzles and components at a spare table in the lobby, and our Game Masters used to brief people by simply telling them the story of their mission. A short three weeks after opening, we introduced Counter-Ops; a mission that would make Escape Games history as the toughest mission our facility has ever had. By the time Counter-Ops retired in 2015, the success rate was less than 1%!
In 2015, we started to build more. Our first thriller-themed game, End of the Line, opened in September and introduced a whole new level of immersion! People seemed to love the creepy and unnerving atmosphere that it offered, so we took things one step further and opened The Haunting of Noriko a couple of months later. Where End of the Line was creepy, Noriko was designed to be downright terrifying. We built an immersive, two-story, Japanese-themed haunted house, filled with surprises and it quickly became a fan favourite.
Noriko was so popular that we decided we needed new ways to scare our customers. What’s more terrifying than the unknown? Absolutely nothing! So, we opened another favourite mission called The Unknown in March 2015. Unlike all our previous missions, The Unknown is shrouded in mystery. You can’t find the briefing video or game description on our website; if you want to know what’s in there, you’ll have to play. While The Unknown quickly became our most popular, and frequently booked mission, we decided to work on upgrading some of our existing missions. So, we replaced End of the Line with Crossroads in February of 2016, and Le Voleur du Diamant with Syndicate: The Relic Heist later that year in April.
The next mission we built was Mindshaft, and we know, it took us a while. But in May 2018, our first adventure game opened. We developed so much new tech to build Mindshaft, that we started working on designing Pathogen. We completed construction and replaced Syndicate in March 2019. Now, after five years of operations, we have six missions, a dedicated crew of awesome staff, and the greatest customers we could hope for. But we’re just getting started! Expect an exciting new mission as soon as this summer and lots more coming soon from Escape Games Canada!