Over the last decade, escape room games have become increasingly popular. And this is no surprise as it's a great concept. The idea of getting together a group of colleagues or friends in order to complete what feels like a mysterious real life mission against the clock makes for an exhilarating time. As you well know, you need to find the hidden clues and solve the riddles in order to make your escape. Although completing the escape room game within the allotted time is a great feeling, you'll find that just by taking part in the game, it will prove itself exciting enough, independent of whether you win or lose.

With the gradual introduction of the idea of gamification into the workplace situation, it is no surprise that the concept of escape room games has been adopted by corporations. And considering that the game functions at it's optimum when a team is working together, so it’s no surprise that these games are now a favourite corporate exercise, especially when it comes to team building. 

This last year saw so many employees having to social distance and work from home. This meant that a normal team building exercise inside an enclosed room would be impossible.  And that's why Virtual escape rooms have developed and grown in popularity. This allows players to play in a real escape room that’s staffed by a games master. And all done over the internet via a streaming conference app like Zoom. But we want to go much further and create a world that is exclusively virtual in all aspects. With absolutely zero real human components.

Adding Virtual Reality to Escape Rooms

Thanks to movies like Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One, the idea of virtual reality has moved from a concept to reality. There are many companies such as Facebook owned Oculus VR that produce headsets along with the visuals in order to create a totally virtual platform. Within this virtual world the player is able to explore to their heart's content. Though much depends on the available material that has been programmed for use. Nevertheless, by adding VR into the escape room setup, it transforms the whole experience. Both on a material and immaterial level.

How Does a VR Escape Room Work?

We should start by saying that the premise of a VR escape room is exactly the same as that of a real brick and mortar one. Once again, it‘s a collaborative effort to solve puzzles, find clues and make your escape together as a team. The only difference being that with the VR component there are no physical objects to find and no real locks to undo. Nevertheless, the game typically takes place in a room. The only furniture present will be chairs along with a headset. The player takes a seat, puts on the headset and puts in the ear buds. Then they will enter the room, but in a virtual manner. Because there are no longer limitations from the material world, then anything is possible depending on what's programmed into the headset.

Just as in Ready Player One, the possibilities are literally endless. Whatever the writers of the escape room game come up with and the developers are able to create, then you'll find it in front of your VR headset. Depending on the visuals used and the quality of development, the whole experience can really feel very realistic indeed. Maybe you've been to a shopping mall or a gaming arcade where they have had VR headsets to try. In the beginning it can be quite disorientating. Once you get the hang of it then it feels kind of natural. Having said that, when you remove the headset after playing for 20 minutes or so, there is a rather strange feeling. It’s as if you have been in a different world. Which, in a way, you have. But it's coupled with a sensation that you are, for a tiny instant, unsure which world is the real one. 

It can be argued that the whole point of a real brick-and-mortar escape room game is that it encourages social interaction between the team members. Obviously, with a headset strapped on and earbuds stuck in your ears, then it's more like a feeling of isolation. But that’s not exactly true. After all, you can still see your teammates. It's just that they are represented as avatars, which is the same way they see you. And though we’ll be the first to admit that these avatars are a little clunky, to be honest, when you're playing the game in VR, you totally forget about such minor distractions. 

VR For escape Room Businesses

We can now get a better understanding of how VR can help transform an escape room experience for the consumer. But how can it help from a business point of view? There are some escape room franchises such as ExitTheRoom that do very well for themselves. Another company, Escape Hunt, which is also a franchise network, recently went public. By enabling the use of VR, businesses such as these can only see benefits. In truth, in order to start utilizing VR technology, there first needs to be a huge reduction in the cost of setting up a VR room. Yes, we understand that headsets are not cheap but, the cost of fitting out an escape room is still going to be more expensive than the price of digital equipment and content. It's easy to forget just how expensive it is to create the infrastructure needed for a physical escape room game experience. 

This brings us to one of the major limitations of a brick-and-mortar location.Namely, that is by limiting the number of rooms available, then the number of themes is also limited. By utilising VR, you'll be able to offer customers a virtually unlimited supply of themes and narratives. There’s no doubt that this would definitely lead to much better customer retention. Once the VR business has been going for a while, then it’s possible to build up a large portfolio of digital content. So it would be great for a customer, when visiting an escape room company’s website, to be able to see previous games playback in a VR format.

From A Consumer’s Perspective

One thing is for sure, there's going to be some differences if you want to compare a VR escape room with a physical brick-and-mortar one. Though VR is still rather primitive and certainly does not produce physically accurate imaging, playing it is still said to be much more immersive. Whether you and your team are trapped hundreds of fathoms under the Pacific Ocean in a diving bell or sunken submarine, or at the other end of the scale, you are in the International Space Station circling round the Earth, trying to fix an air leak. Both situations need the team to work together in order to find solutions and escape together. We feel virtual reality can bring all types of amazing and original scenarios into the escape room game space. 

As VR becomes more popular, then we predict the cost of headsets will decrease substantially. This means that escape room game aficionados will be able to play at home on their laptops or portable devices whilst seated on their sofas. It will mean that for many escape room businesses, the idea of renting or buying a real space, in a city which is always going to be extremely expensive, will then be redundant.