This year has featured some sad losses to the escape room industry – but also a number of really exciting new rooms from some of the established giants, as well as new indie companies appearing and striking above their weight. July’s round-up of new escape rooms features all of the above – and don’t miss the link to the list of UKERA finalists!
Greater London
🔒 Horror Escape in South London are getting their freak on with carnival-themed new room Freakshow. All their rooms are scary with live actors, although they rate this one’s fear factor around the middle of their scale.
South East England
🔒 There’s a new room opening at Tulleys this month! Relic looks like it’s be a temple-delver – joining some other top-end rooms of that theme in the area.
🔒 Equally exciting: Clue Cracker have now opened Dino Kingdom! Life finds a way.
🔒 Dorking has an escape venue once more; Trapped in Time is a new company founded by a corporate events group with experience in escape rooms, and they’ve opened The Evelyn Gunpowder Legacy.
🔒 Alton’s Immersion Escape Rooms opened Detonate 2, which like the (still available) first Detonate involves a museum and a bomb.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Major Mind Games (Horsham): Elf Intervention: The Great Sack Hijack
🔒 Pressure Point Escape Rooms (Ashford): The Temple
Last call for:
❗️ The Escapement Margate: Egyptian Exodus, Pirates of Polaris, The Pit (closing 31 Aug)
Channel Islands
🔒 On Guernsey, MTG Escapes have a new Friends-themed room called The One With The Lost Keys, as well as a new outdoor puzzle trail called NO esCAPES!.
South West England
🔒 This month’s best pun award goes to Kernow Escape in Falmouth for their new prison escape game Falcatraz.
🔒 More prison breakouts at Escape Plymouth, who’ve added Prison Breakout to their line-up, one of Escape’s classic rooms.
🔒 In Bovey Tracey, Escape The Game will soon open The Funfair Fix, giving you the chance to discover: is it really possible to win those carnival games or are they fixed?
Wales
🔒 PanIQ Rooms Wales (Porthmadog): The Orphans Key opens on 30 Jul
🔒 Tenby’s Great Escape: The Time Trap opens on 29 Jul
West Midlands
🔒 The Mystic Temple is back open again, now at Top Escape Rooms’ new location.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 Escape Hunt Birmingham: Aladdin & The Magic Vault, Alice in Puzzleland, Curse of the Pharaoh, Journey to Atlantis
🎄 The Puzzle Room Cannock: The Toy Makers Mistake
Last call for:
❗️ XscapeNow (Telford): The Traitor (closing 01 Sep)
East Midlands
🔒 70 min head-to-head room Versus is now open at Escapologist in Cleethorpes. Sadly, the venue has announced that it will close at the end of September, so get there quickly for Versus or any of their other rooms.
🔒 Rushden Escape Rooms now offer a tabletop game called The Wizard’s Chest.
Last call for:
❗️ Escape Halse: Escape Halse (closing 31 Aug)
East of England
🔒 If you’re planning an escape tour near Bury St Edmunds, there’s another option to consider for your list: new company Escape Room Bury St Edmunds have launched with pirate adventure Blackbeard Vs The Kraken.
🔒 Great Escapists is an escape room company operating out of Royston Museum, where they’ve been running Operation Overlord on selected weekends since earlier this year. Grab a slot quickly if you want one – they’re due to replace it with a new game after September.
🔒 EO Escape Rooms in Sudbury added a couple more tabletop case games, Problama and The Forbidden Forest.
🔒 Escape Colchester replaced The Cabin with The Cursed Cabin – I believe it has a fresh set of puzzles, though it may have overlap with some of the other Cabin games from the Escape chain.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 Escape Rooms Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds): Shipwrecked
🔒 Great Yarmouth Escape Rooms: The Lost Circus
🔒 The Escape House (St Neots): Galacticus
North West England
🔒 New at Lakes Escapes in Workington is Witches Chamber, where you must escape from the curse of a malicious witch.
🔒 Lucardo’s Manchester branch is delving into high fantasy with their new room Castle of the Mad King – save the realm of Lucardia!
🔒 Compendium are switching their sub collect-up-em game to an updated version, UI-55: The Battle for the Crown Jewels.
Yorkshire and the Humber
From last month’s update:
🔒 Project Escape Middlesbrough: One Last Job: The Bank Heist
Scotland
🎭 New in Edinburgh is Team Machine, who’ve launched with a game called Synergy 1.0, which is designed as a high-capacity escape room for 8-24 players (!). It’s designed by well-respected Escape The Past, so I’ll be interested to hear how people find it.
🔒 There’s a pop-up room running in Jedburgh Castle Jail and Museum from tomorrow through the autumn; Unsolved: The Malcolm Munro Case lets you dig into a historic injustice.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 Bell Pettigrew Museum of Natural History (St Andrews): Code to the Crown
Also
🏆 The nominees for the UK Escape Room Awards have been announced: https://ukescaperoomawards.org/2026-finalists/! Big congrats to all the finalists; voting is now open, so get involved and cast your votes for your favourites.
🙋 I haven’t tried it myself so far but https://www.escape-network.com/ looks like a very useful tool if you’re in need of people to escape with, and the more people use it the more useful it’ll become.