In short: Answers about Asylum, Escape This’s 18+ psychological horror escape room: the story and Buried Alive, difficulty, prices in Northbridge, Sydney and Melbourne, group size, age rules, safety and records.
Asylum is a 60-minute, 18+ horror escape room by Escape This. You wake cuffed in a padded cell while a voice on the intercom promises therapy until you’re cured. Your group has one hour to escape before he returns for a final procedure. It plays at Northbridge in Perth, Sydney CBD and Melbourne CBD, with a Brisbane CBD ward opening in the first half of 2027.
Yes. Asylum picks up where Buried Alive leaves off: you’ve clawed your way out of the coffin, only to wake up chained in a padded cell. You don’t need to have played Buried Alive first, but its survivors will recognise the thread.
Nobody knows his name. In Asylum he’s only a voice through a crackling speaker: chirpy, affectionate and deeply unhinged, calling you his favourite patients. He insists therapy is fun and that you stay until you’re better. You don’t want to be there when he walks back in.
It’s Asylum’s tagline, and a warning. The room is psychological horror: much of the fear comes from darkness, sound and what you imagine is in the cell with you, so staying calm under pressure matters as much as solving puzzles.
In spirit, yes. Escape This lists Saw fans among the people Asylum is made for: you’re restrained, someone unseen is pulling the strings, and the way out runs through his twisted treatments. It’s an escape room, though, so there’s no gore to sit through, just a lot of dread.
Asylum is rated 8 out of 10 by Escape This. The puzzles are complex, and you solve them in darkness, in restraints and with a voice taunting you, which makes the ward much tougher than the puzzle count suggests.
Probably not. Escape This recommends playing a few rooms before you check into Asylum, because it’s both hard and intense. First-timers in Sydney or Melbourne could start with Pirates instead and come back for the ward later.
Very. Asylum is one of Escape This’s extreme horror rooms: total darkness, flashing light, restraints, jump scares and strong adult themes. If anyone in your group is unsure they’ll cope, Escape This’s advice is simple: choose a different room.
Yes, the game starts with restraints. Asylum opens in a dark padded cell with cuffs and chains, and freeing yourselves is the first part of the escape. A panic button in the cell gets a gamesmaster to you at any point.
You get 60 minutes inside Asylum. Arrive 15 minutes beforehand for check-in and the briefing, and allow another 15 afterwards to recover, so the whole visit takes about 90 minutes.
Asylum is priced per player. Northbridge: $49 Monday–Thursday, $65 Friday–Sunday. Sydney CBD: $55 Monday–Thursday (outside public and school holidays), $65 Friday–Sunday. Melbourne CBD: $55 off-peak, $69 peak. There are no child prices, because every player is an adult.
Choose Northbridge, Sydney CBD or Melbourne CBD on the Asylum booking page, pick a time and pay; your booking is confirmed straight away. You can also call Northbridge on (08) 6118 0286, Sydney on (02) 9173 8535 or Melbourne on (03) 7078 8118.
Not in one cell: Asylum holds four players at most. Larger groups split up and book Asylum alongside other rooms starting at the same time, using the venue’s multi-room booker. For parties and work events that need several rooms at once, Team Escape plans the whole night.
No. Every Asylum booking is private to your group, so the only people in the cell with you are the ones you brought, plus whoever is on the intercom.
Yes. Escape This gift vouchers, sold on escapethis.com.au, can be used for Asylum, which makes it an unusual present for a horror fan’s 18th birthday or later. Just check the recipient is ready for an extreme room.
Two to four players at Northbridge, Sydney CBD and Melbourne CBD. Asylum’s limits are fixed: a solo player can’t book it and a fifth person can’t squeeze in.
Yes: Asylum is strictly 18+. Every player must be an adult, children can’t come in as spectators, and staff may ask for ID. There are no exceptions, even with a parent.
Yes, two is the minimum for Asylum and plenty of couples play it as a date with a difference. Expect to lean on each other: with only two of you, every puzzle and every scare is shared.
No, but someone does. Asylum asks for moderate English reading, and the voice and the hints come through in English, so one fluent reader in the group is the minimum and a majority is better.
No. Asylum isn’t wheelchair accessible at any of its three venues, and the game involves crawling and confined spaces. Escape This staff can recommend an accessible room at the same venue instead.
It’s not recommended. Asylum has confined spaces and long stretches of darkness, and both can trigger claustrophobia. If small, dark places worry you, pick another Escape This room.
Generally no. Asylum includes crawling and tight spaces, so Escape This says it may not suit pregnant players or anyone with mobility difficulties. The original Asylum site went further and asked pregnant players not to book.
Yes. Asylum is a controlled lighting environment with flashing light and periods of complete darkness, so it isn’t recommended for anyone with epilepsy or light sensitivity.
No. Asylum uses no smoke or haze effects, so asthma and other breathing conditions aren’t a barrier. The bleach smell is part of the story, not the room.
Press the panic button. Asylum’s cell has one, a gamesmaster is watching on CCTV the whole time, and they’ll open up immediately. The rest of the group can carry on without you.
Yes, with help from the group. Asylum’s story and hints are delivered by audio, so teammates pass them on, and the puzzles themselves are hands-on.
Fifteen minutes before your Asylum session. That leaves time for the lockers, ID checks and the safety briefing, so none of your hour in the cell is lost.
Clothes you can crawl in and closed shoes. Asylum involves getting low in tight spaces, so skip anything loose or precious. Hospital whites or pyjamas are a fun nod to the ward.
No to both. Anyone affected by alcohol or drugs won’t be allowed into Asylum, and phones, cameras and smartwatches stay in the lockers so nothing from the cell gets out.
Three cells are open. The original Asylum opened on Lake Street at Escape This Northbridge in Perth; copies of the same ward now run on George Street in Sydney CBD and at 259 Collins Street in Melbourne CBD. A fourth is being built for Escape This Brisbane CBD, due in the first half of 2027.
Asylum shares Escape This Northbridge with The Haunting, Cannibal, Dracula, The Possession, Zombie Apocalypse, Frankenstein Resurrection and its prequel Buried Alive. Groups wanting a second fright the same night often book The Haunting next.
Yes. Asylum at Northbridge costs $49 per player Monday to Thursday and $65 Friday to Sunday, so a midweek booking saves each patient $16.
Asylum at Sydney CBD is $55 per adult Monday to Thursday, outside public and school holidays, and $65 Friday to Sunday. Bookings are online or on (02) 9173 8535.
Melbourne CBD prices each Asylum session as off-peak ($55 per player) or peak ($69 per player). The booking calendar on escapethis.com.au shows which price applies before you pay.
Escape This warns that Asylum’s jump scares may not suit anyone with a pacemaker. Talk to the Melbourne CBD team on (03) 7078 8118 before booking.
53% of the 3,473 groups locked in Asylum have got out. By venue: Escape This Northbridge 44%, Escape This Sydney CBD 70%, Escape This Melbourne CBD 83%.
The Asylum record is 24:00, set by a team of 4 at Escape This Sydney CBD using 3 hints, with 36:00 still on the clock.
Ranked by lowest escape rate, Asylum is the 6th hardest of 9 at Escape This Northbridge; the 5th hardest of 9 at Escape This Sydney CBD. Escape This Melbourne CBD hasn’t logged enough Asylum games to be ranked yet.
Groups that escape Asylum need 52:58 of their hour on average, and ask for 7.1 hints along the way.
Escape Asylum inside the hour and the gamesmaster logs your time. The quickest Asylum escapes at each venue are listed on this page by time, team size and date, with no names.
Asylum averages 4.97 out of 5 across Northbridge, Sydney and Melbourne, and 491 patients gave it five stars. Players talk about how interactive and well designed the cell is, the challenge, and the gamesmasters who look after them.
Yes. Asylum at Escape This Northbridge is a winner in the Morty Top Escape Rooms Awards 2025, chosen from more than 50,000 escape games in 27 countries. The Sydney and Melbourne wards are built on the same award-winning design.
Escape This designed Asylum and built its padded cells in-house, as the follow-up to Buried Alive. Escape This is Australia’s largest escape room operator, with its own escape room design studio and escape room factory.
A comic, fictional session journal that Escape This writes in the voice of Asylum’s villain, the cheerful, unnamed therapist on the intercom. He writes up his favourite patients, his three practices and his feelings about the panic button. The notes are safe for work to read; Asylum itself is strictly 18+.
No. The therapist writes about patients, moods and house rules in the broad terms the room’s own pages use, and never records a code, a hiding place or what to do next. Reading every note before your session leaves Asylum’s 8 out of 10 puzzles untouched.
In The Undertaker’s Diary, yes: that comic diary treats the voice on the intercom as one of the Undertaker’s alter egos, alongside Cannibal’s Northbridge Butcher. In the Notes From the Intercom he calls the Undertaker “the gentleman downstairs with the boxes”. Asylum itself never names its villain, and both diaries are fiction by Escape This.
The three openings. Escape This’s booking records give Asylum’s first day at Escape This Northbridge as 31 October 2023, at Sydney CBD as 23 May 2025 and at Melbourne CBD as 3 October 2026, and the therapist’s opening-day notes carry those dates. The other dates are picked for the story.
About monthly through 2027. Each note appears on the Asylum site on the date written at its top, so returning patients usually find a fresh one.
Book Asylum in Northbridge, Sydney or Melbourne. Two to four adults, one padded cell, sixty minutes before he’s back.
