If you’re a fan of escape rooms, you’ve probably heard of Escape Simulator. Following the success of the original game, the Pine Studio team has released a sequel. Escape Simulator 2 features more photorealistic graphics, new puzzles and an editor that allows you to create your own escape rooms. Escape Simulator 2 is available on Steam from 27 October 2025.
Puzzles to solve
At launch, Escape Simulator 2 offers three scenarios, Dracula’s Castle, Starship EOS and The Cursed Treasure, each of which has four rooms to solve. However, the developers have announced that more content will be added in the coming months.
Like its predecessor, Escape Simulator 2 has a multiplayer mode that allows you to join online games with friends and work together to solve puzzles. The game is also perfectly enjoyable in single-player mode, though.
The decision to maintain a first-person perspective is particularly appropriate, as it serves to enhance the sense of immersion, as if we were participants in a real escape room. This feeling of immersion is enhanced by the ability to sit or lie down on beds or take a seat in the spaceship’s capsules. These actions allow us to look at our surroundings from different perspectives and gather clues.
Now, let’s focus on the main aspect of the game: the puzzles. The Escape Simulator 2 development team has done a fantastic job. Each room contains a series of interconnected puzzles: sometimes, you must solve one puzzle to collect items for another.
The basic mechanics follow similar patterns. For instance, some puzzles require you to read information that can help you solve them. When there are books containing clues or other useful textual or multimedia documents, the game allows you to pin these elements to the screen for reference, so you don’t have to rely on your memory or make notes. This system is very well designed, as you can place the clues wherever you want and resize them as required.
However, what is impressive is that each puzzle is different from the others. Even within the same scenario, the rooms only have the setting in common; each puzzle is constructed in such a way as to be unique. This greatly enhances the gaming experience, making it engaging to complete rooms by tackling puzzles that are always new and never repetitive.
In fact, solving the puzzles requires different strategies. Some require you to search for objects, while others require pure reasoning. One example is a variation of ‘The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever’, in which you must determine which gargoyle is telling the truth and which is lying.
This combination of variations on familiar puzzles and riddles makes the game compelling and ensures it never becomes boring.
The hint system
The hint system in Escape Simulator 2 is unique in that each hint becomes a page in the physical world of the game.
As is often the case in modern point-and-click games, the developers have adopted a gradual help system that provides hints in stages without revealing the entire solution.
In most cases, the hints are sufficient, but we noticed that the complete solution was missing in some cases. It would have been better to include it, as it would have been useful in extreme cases where players are one step away from the solution but cannot quite reach it.
Overall, the help system could be improved as it is not entirely dynamic; we also noticed that it offers solutions to puzzles that have already been solved.
Escaped!
We were very satisfied with the consistency of the settings in Escape Simulator 2. Each setting is meticulously detailed and it is difficult to find repeated elements between them. Furthermore, the settings are consistent with the puzzles. For instance, in the space shuttle setting, we encounter puzzles and riddles related to electricity. In the pirate setting, we encounter puzzles involving maps, compasses and cannons.
The game also allows us to customise our character, but the options are limited. However, we can wear clothes related to the settings after completing the relevant rooms.
The editor is an excellent feature which compensates for the limited number of environments currently available (12 rooms in total), allowing us to create and share new environments and puzzles with the community. The editor is comprehensive, but also complex, and not suitable for everyone. Fortunately, the developers have created a series of video tutorials (available on the Steam Community Hub) to help us understand how it works.
To extend the game’s duration and increase the level of challenge, the developers have created a difficult version of a puzzle from each room that can be played separately.
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