Dr. Schoene

Best Escape Rooms in Chicago, IL

Escape rooms are wildly popular excursions for unforgettable entertainment and adventure with friends and family. Each escape room offers a distinct challenge that you must overcome in a set period of time. Completing a room involves solving puzzles, uncovering clues, and following a thrilling storyline through to its conclusion. Escape rooms are great for family outings, date nights, team-building excursions, and memorable fun with friends. If you’re looking for a great destination to liven up your evening, try these top Chicago escape rooms.

Redline VR

Image by Sara Kurig is licensed with Unsplash

Redline VR is part bar, part arcade, and all excitement. Whether you’re a long-time local or a first-time visitor to Chicago, this location is sure to make quite an impression. The destination adds a high-tech twist to the traditional escape room by taking the experience into the virtual realm. Here, you’ll put on a virtual reality headset and go into an immersive, alternate reality where you have just 60 minutes to escape from your predicament. Each virtual room requires at least two players to complete the collaborative escape effort. You’ll have a wide range of rooms to choose from, including:

  • Jungle Quest (Beginner): An unexpected portal transports you to a fantastical world of flying islands. Can you find your way home, or will you be stuck there forever?
  • Mission Sigma (Beginner): The Secret Service has recruited you to make your way through a series of traps to disarm a nuclear warhead positioned precariously on top of a high-rise.
  • Survival (Beginner): Your critical thinking will make the difference between survival and defeat when you experience a vacation gone wrong.
  • Incarna Adventures (Moderate): Explore a fantastical world and find the source of a looming danger.
  • The Prison (Moderate): You’ve been framed and find yourself confined to a jail cell. Can you clear your name and get out?
  • Sanctum (Moderate): There are dark secrets to uncover in this mysterious sanctuary before you can find your way out.
  • Alice in Wonderland (Difficult): Set off in Alice’s shoes and see Wonderland like never before in this immersive gaming experience.
  • Signal Lost (Difficult): You’re stranded on a space station and tasked with repairing the onboard computer to return home.
  • Chernobyl (Difficult): Travel to the catastrophic site of Chernobyl and discover whether there was a way to avoid this deadly disaster.
  • Cyberpunk 2077 (Difficult): Can you download the stack memory successfully to complete this futuristic steampunk challenge?

Redline VR is restricted to age 21 and over after 6 p.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Reservations are highly recommended, although you can always take your chances and have a drink at the bar while you wait.

Location: 4702 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago.

Hours: 4 to 10 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, 4 to 11 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. Friday, 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday, and 1 to 11 p.m. on Sunday.

The Quandry

If you’re looking for a family-friendly escape room experience, The Quandry is one of the best options in Chicago. You have three games to choose from that are inspired by popular films:

  • Lab of the Lost: This escape experience will thrill Jurassic Park fans. You’re on a team of scientists who’ve brought dinosaurs back to life using prehistoric DNA. Suddenly, the communications go down, and you have to skillfully avert disaster.
  • Left at Home: Join forces with Cal McKevinister to defeat the holiday bandits as this family favorite Christmas tale takes on a new life.
  • Escape the 90s: Two estranged 90s teens have been sent to their room. You have to resolve the rift in their friendship, or you’ll never make it to the big party tonight.

All of the escape rooms at The Quandry last an hour. Booking ahead is highly recommended, as they are usually unable to accept walk-ins.

Location: 3205 N. Clark St. #100, Chicago.

Hours: Noon to 10:30 p.m. Monday to Friday and 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday.

Art of Escape Room

You have 60 minutes to find your way out of the challenges at the Art of Escape Room. These rooms are designed for players ages 12 and over, and they offer two distinct challenges:

  • Casino Heist: You have 60 minutes to rob a casino and return the million stolen dollars to the mafia. The escape rate is 32% for this scenario.
  • Kingdom of Night: Inspired by the famous series, this escape room challenges you to fight the dead to defend the living. See if you can join the 34% who successfully found their way out.

A third adventure, the “Recording Studio,” will be coming soon. Advance reservations are necessary.

Location: 162 W. Grand Ave., Lower Level, Chicago.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

Lock Chicago

Lock Chicago offers an intriguing take on traditional escape room challenges. Here, there are alternate endings, so you can finish the room in more than one way. These escape rooms require a minimum of four players and are best suited for players ages 12 and over. Your options include:

  • Matsuri: You must recover the Drum of Order from the thieves’ den before the end of the village festival to successfully end the conflict between rival gangs.
  • Malfunction: Dr. Keplar has opened up a wormhole into deep space and has been swept away. In his absence, it’s up to you to close the wormhole before it alters reality forever.
  • Icarus: Project ICARUS features the necessary defenses to destroy the meteor on course to wipe out your planet, but you must restore power to the system before impact.

Make reservations online in advance to secure a spot in one of these coveted escape room experiences.

Location: 2510 Green Bay Road, Evanston.

Hours: 5:30 to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Do you know of any other great escape rooms in and around Chicago? Contact our team at Gurnee Podiatry & Sports Medicine and let us know so we can update our recommendations. We love having the best suggestions in the city for our patients.