Barcelona, Jan 2025
I wouldn’t describe myself as a fan of horror escape rooms, particularly. Given a choice of themes at a venue I’ll usually pick a non-horror one, and I’m more likely to enjoy a top horror game despite the scares than because of them; sometimes I find I’m waiting for the ‘scary’ bits to finish so that I can continue on with the escaping. But Nightshift makes a strong argument for enjoying horror, specifically for the horror elements. There are lots of good puzzles here, but all my favourite moments were times they were finding ways to surprise or scare us.
This one is set in an abandoned psychiatric hospital, which naturally has some unpleasant secrets. And really, that’s all you need to know; I recommend playing Nightshift without knowing anything about it. I’m not going to give any spoilers, but even so, feel free to stop reading here and come back when you’ve played it.
The meat of the game follows the tropes of the genre: plenty of darkness and surprises, creepy and macabre settings, moments when you end up alone, or discover that you’re less alone than you thought. For the size of the space, the detail of the decor and the quantity and quality of the puzzles, this would already be a first rate escape room. But what really makes it is a succession of different events and moments of theatre, about which the less said the better.
I went in expecting Nightshift to be somewhat less intense than the scariest rooms I’ve played, but in fact I’d bracket it alongside them – it’s not a game for the nervous. But if you’re willing to brave it, it might convince you that it’s worth playing more horror – at least, it is when it’s this good. 
