RATING: 6 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 4:00
“Offering opulent accommodations for murderous monsters (please, no undercover police.)”
HORROR HOTEL is a remote play version of an existing, physical escape game at the venue’s brick and mortar location – retrofitted to be offered as a live, online experience. Although altered slightly to better flow in this new medium, the game is, at it’s core, essentially the same as what guests will find should they visit Exit Now in person. To read our Pro-Tips on how to best enjoy this new Remote Play genre, click here.
Keep Agent X (your real life Avatar) alive! Find and eliminate all monsters inside a huge abandoned Horror Hotel!
Your decisions affect the mission! Can you handle it?
From the very moment remote operatives connect through Zoom, it’s clear that the mission into HORROR HOTEL will be anything but ordinary. Greeted abruptly by Agent X, walking down the actual streets of Athens, there’s just minutes to brief on the goals – and dangers – of this mission.
Once a beacon for society’s elite, this downtown hotel has sat abandoned for years, clearly falling into a state of disrepair. Unfortunately, it brings with it much bigger risks than just tarnished property values; now known only as the HORROR HOTEL, it is believed to be home to murderous monsters, evil spirits and psychopaths of all persuasion.
Agent X may have boots on the ground, but he needs remote operatives to act as the bug in his ear – to watch his back and protect him from the inherent dangers lurking around every corner. With limited inventory and quickly depleting health, Agent X not only must enter HORROR HOTEL alone, but also needs to draw out and kill each monster along the way. Every choice made from afar can have a long-lasting impact on not just his life, but the fate of Greece as a whole.
Set in an absolutely massive 3,200+ square foot space, HORROR HOTEL is unlike anything we’ve experienced before. From the moment would-be guests step foot across its threshold, it’s clear that this is one establishment that will never be known for its hospitality.
Dark, foreboding spaces are barely lit by flickering lamps – casting shadows that dance across the walls. The space is filthy, and at times, stained in blood. Shadowy corners seem to surround, evoking a sense that there truly is no safe space within this sprawling resort.
A tour of the hotel grounds begins, appropriately enough, in the lobby reception area. It, too, is anything but welcoming – but from there, things only get much worse. HORROR HOTEL has been taken over by several psychotic, bloodthirsty monsters. Among them, the Receptionist and owner Ian Brandy, The Guard, mad scientist Doctor Lucas Norton, “The Butcher” Tim Harpy, and other less bound to the mortal realm, like the Werewolf and the Clown.
Like a video game, each monster inhabits its own wing of the hotel, and has transformed it to suit its own style and, ahem, tastes. What results is constantly unexpected surprises in a world that seems forever evolving. It’s all brought to life through triggered background music, custom sound effects, elaborate theatrical lighting and even a healthy dose of real pyrotechnics to create a storyworld like no other.
We touched on it above, but HORROR HOTEL truly is a video game come to life, beginning with its human avatar, Agent X. Although he’s well-equipped for this perilous mission, there’s no room for error; An inventory full of various weaponry and tactical equipment is at remote operatives’ command, with an important catch: each item can only be used once.
HORROR HOTEL quickly becomes a game of problem solving and survival. With much less emphasis on traditional escape game puzzles, remote agents must analyze surroundings and case files collected along the way to determine the unique strengths and weaknesses of each monster – and then create real-world scenarios to take advantage of them. It’s the ultimate immersive theater one-on-one interactions, fused with potentially deadly consequences and actual, live fight scenes with each monster along the way!
And then there’s Agent X himself; he’s still human, after all, so like any living being, he only has four lives. (Hey – we told you this plays out like a video game come to life!). And with the omnipresent dangers that abound, it’s virtually impossible that he stands any chance of escaping HORROR HOTEL with them all.
Simply put, HORROR HOTEL has some of the most immersively engaging, thought provoking challenges we’ve ever encountered; not just basic puzzle-book tasks, but genuinely dangerous threats that must be faced and conquered by embracing the environment and limited tools at Agent X’s disposal. What results evokes just as much a sense of directing a live horror movie in real time as it does simply playing an escape game.
It was clear from the start that Exit Now created something genuinely unique with HORROR HOTEL, but with each moment that passed, in each new room discovered, they somehow managed to raise the bar – and then raise it again, and then raise it again. In the best possible way, there’s just nothing traditional about this experience. While others have made the claim in the past, HORROR HOTEL is unquestionably the single best example of merging the worlds of escape game puzzles with immersive theater interactions and combining it all with a video game come to life.
With a 90 minute run time, HORROR HOTEL is longer than most traditional escape game experiences. We’ve found in the past that oftentimes, longer games do not necessarily benefit from being longer; instead, they feel as though they could have been fine-tuned with more in-depth beta testing to improve the flow and keep things equally paced. HORROR HOTEL soundly proves to be the exception to that rule – as not only does it continuously ramp up the pulse-pounding excitement with each new room discovered, but by the end, guests may still not be ready to pack their bags and check out – even with the whole constant risk of murder thing.
HORROR HOTEL also takes notable accolades for being one of the only Remote Play Game experiences that actually manages to be scary through a webcam. Exit Now masterfully crafts a storyworld that is so engaging and so believable that it leaves agents on the edge of their seat no matter how experienced they are, or how jaded they may otherwise be. Perhaps our only regret was the inability to request an early check-in, because had HORROR HOTEL been available just a few short weeks sooner, it would have easily won gold from our 2020 Keys To Greatness – Best Remote Play – International award.
Our night in Athens may have been anything but restful, but it shall remain forever among the most memorable, and most immersive escape game experiences anywhere in the world.
*Montu, Escape Authority’s VP, Dog Business™ and lead home game correspondent endorses the opinions found within this review.
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Venue: Exit Now
Location: Remote online play at home, broadcast live from Athens, Greece
Number of Remote Games: 1
GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:
Duration: 90 minutes
Capacity: 12 connections
Group Type: Private / You will not be paired with strangers.
Cost: 70€ per group
We thank Exit Now for inviting us to play this game. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, that in no way impacts the opinion included within this review.