Escape games are essentially puzzle games whose goal is unlocking the final door and leaving the in-game site. Some people consider them a sub-genre of the aforementioned genre and we can’t deny it’s true for some. However, others are far too complex to be put in a box and defined by one genre only. They’re visually stunning, elaborate, and mentally stimulating, and many titles even include decoys, multiple levels, and time management to raise the difficulty to a whole new level. With that acknowledged, let’s get into our list of the best escape games for PC.
1. Survivors: The Quest
Escape City, one of the best PC escape games, topped our list. It’s an escape room on a massive scope – located on a tropical island. It intertwines exploration, survival, quest solving, detective work, crafting, cooking, dangerous monsters, fighting off locals, team management, and an immense amount of pressure giving you a near-constant adrenaline rush. We were stunned when we saw the base game is free, too. The game’s charm, high-stakes, and the gorgeous environment that stretches as far as eyes can see, populated by human and animal predators, won us over completely.
2. Doomsday Escape
We’re not sure an escape room PC game can have a better game than Doomsday Escape, plus it makes things clear from the get-go. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world, and you’re one of the few humans alive. Your goal is to go from room to room, solving mini-puzzles, collecting resources, food, and bringing other survivors along. The end-goal? Eventually getting out of your virtual hell, obviously. This won’t be easy – you’re not only disoriented but must dodge traps set along the way. Also, to give you a sense of progression, the game has a leveling system.
3. Amazing Breakout Game
Ready for the tagline of an escape game where you visit a museum? It’s, “you better escape before you become an exhibit yourself…” We think that’s terrifying and hilarious. Plus, it plays on a genuine fear many people have. You casually enter the museum, and, somehow, the guard forgets you’re there, locks the doors, and bails. You check the exit, and, as you dread, it’s closed shut. The only way out is to unlock hall by hall, witnessing different periods in human history. So, while you’re solving puzzles and using logic, you’re becoming a history buff. Not a double whammy if you ask us.
4. Can You Escape 2
If you’re a real estate agent or an interior designer, Can You Escape 2 is one of the best PC escape room games for you. We can’t guarantee you’ll still like your profession afterward, though. With that in mind, the story revolves around a search for an apartment but you can’t find anything you like. Then, suddenly, a real estate agent puts a lot of offers on the market, all of which are to your taste. After you schedule an appointment and show up, you get stuck in a sticky, unexpected situation and must escape each of the rooms in apartments you liked so much.
5. Hellgate Escape
Hellgate Escape is one of the leading escape PC games that likely needs no description. You died and woke up in Hell, surrounded by countless demons and devils. Your goal is to explore many horrifying placed, including Bone Cemetery, Hell Children’s Room, and Chamber of Tortures. As you go along, solving puzzles, collecting hidden items, and gaining wisdom, you realize something upsetting. There’s an abundance of mortal souls like yours, and not be of them has ever escaped the wretched place. Your goal, clearly, is to become the first that has.
6. Escape City
If you love police games for PC, you’ll thoroughly enjoy this one. It’ll put you into the shoes of a rookie police crime detective, active in the New York of the 1940s, laden with ruthless gangs. They’re not only violent, but also deal drugs, bribe cops, politicians, and other people in power. Your goal is to connect the dots, gather and analyze evidence, and put criminals in jail one by one. While the premise sounds fun, the game is arduous and will require logical thinking. So, expect a lot of difficulty on your journey to getting rid of the gang once for all.
7. .T.E.S.T: Expected Behavior
.T.E.S.T: Expected Behavior is an action-adventure single-player simulation with the puzzle, escape room, and sci-fi game elements. We’d compare it to Portal 2, among the best-rated PC games. It has a similar vibe and uses the first-person perspective, but it has 119 levels to complete. Additionally, it features a non-linear level map and allows control of structure changes, time manipulation, and space curvature. Finally, you’ll discover and challenge the game’s rules, explore multiple game zones, and can even move your consciousness to another body.
8. 18 Floors
This game has gorgeous graphics, so you better have a powerful graphics card. Moreover, 18 Floors is a Virtual Reality game with puzzle and escape room elements, and thus requires a compatible VR headset. The game evokes feelings of mystery and suspense, a desire for solving intricate puzzles, and level exploration. As the name suggests, there are 18 floors, each of which has a variety of sealed rooms you must walk in and out of. The storyline is equally complex and involves a galactic conspiracy with the protagonist’s home planet, destroyed a millennia ago.
9. -KLAUS-
Fans of 2D games for PC, we hear you and bring forth -KLAUS-, an adventure platformer game. Unfortunately, you’ll play as a companion to the title character, Klaus. Fortunately, Klaus will often break the fourth wall and talk to you about things he wonders about. And there’s a lot he doesn’t know – his identity or the reason he’s in the basement he’s escaping from. Additionally, you can play as K1, the friendly brawler guy with destructive powers, whose storyline occasionally intertwines with Klaus’s at times. Finally, there are 6 worlds, over 100 rooms, 3 bosses, 34 levels, hidden collectible levels, and 2 endings.
10. 100 Doors Game Escape from School
100 Doors Game Escape from School is one of the top PC games for girls that love the escape room concept. The game features 140 levels and 16 different rooms you must get through to abandon school. But to get there, you must complete mini-games, find hidden objects, and solve puzzles, many of which have to do with school subjects. Those include geography, PE, history, chemistry, and general knowledge of the world around us. The game also offers hints if you’re stuck, and allows you to skip to the next level with the ability to come back to the skipped one later.
11. 123 Slaughter Me Street
123 Slaughter Me Street is a horror PC game with an escape room storyline. Unsurprisingly, it’s filled with monsters to the brim. Even worse, you start out knowing absolutely nothing except that you ran from the police, slipped from the roof, and fell into darkness. Also, you’re aware you twisted your ankle and can barely move. Also, the flashlight is dead, and you run into dangerous creatures at every corner. Your sole goal is to beat the sense of anxiety and paranoia, survive constant heart-pounding, dodge the unknown beings, and find the exit.
12. Pirate Escape
Pirate Escape didn’t land a spot on the top pirate PC games list, but it should have. The premise is the exact opposite, though. Instead of camaraderie and staying together until the last dying breath, you and your crew are betrayed by, seemingly, another crew member. And after 10 years of plundering, fighting, and sailing the seven seas, no less. Your goal is to break out of your cell, navigate your way to the deck of the pirate ship unnoticed and regain freedom. Along the way, you’ll break codes, solve puzzles, and collect necessary items.
13. Psycho Escape
It makes sense why players enjoy killing games when they’re the ones committing murder. But what if the roles were reversed? In Psycho Escape, you become the prey after getting an unexpected call from a murderer. He has a terrifyingly deep voice, knows your identity, habits, and current location, and is coming. Because calling the police is a no-go, you must solve puzzles, uncover mysteries, and find objects as you flee for your life from room to room. To remain alive, you’ll either need to think on your feet and hope you’re right or bolt whenever he catches up to you.
14. Cops Vs Robbers Prison Escape
Do you love games like Minecraft? You’ll adore Cops Vs Robbers Prison Escape, then. Its graphics are a rip-off of Minecraft, including player models, buildings, and environment, but that’s not it. What places it among the best escape room games for PC is that it’s an FPS game for PC. The storyline is unusual too because you can play both sides. As a cop, you’ll extinguish prisoners’ desire to bail. As a convict, you’ll plot how to break free. Additionally, higher levels introduce ammo, speed, and health drops, while drastically boosting the game’s difficulty.
15. 24 Hours ’til Rescue
24 Hours ’til Rescue is a zombie game in which your goal is to stay alive for 24 hours, then run off to safety. Unfortunately, the game publisher claims succeeding on your first try is nearly impossible, especially because death is permanent. Also, you must juggle 10 completely different characters, craft items, cook food, and loot weapons, armor, and ammunition from every single building. The city also has a day-night system, various dynamic or scheduled events, and obstacles such as barricades, rat-infested sewers, infected hospitals, dangerous buildings, and more.
16. Hidden Objects: Time Crimes
Hidden Objects: Time Crimes is a time-traveling adventure based on finding and apprehending an individual who’s changing the past. Using an ancient time machine, you and a detective team at your disposal explore crime scenes that are decades if not centuries apart. These places of crimes are e connected by intricate puzzles, hidden clues, and concealed objects. You’ll quickly discover each of them has a connection to the criminals, and their discovery is pivotal for continuous progress from one site to the next.
17. Wild West Escape
We’re big fans of Red Dead Redemption 2 and the time the game is set in. If you are too, why not combine the love for the American frontier and escape room? The result would be Wild West Escape, a masterful mix set in the Texas Old West in the 17th century. On your journey toward escaping, you’ll go through camps, taverns, mines, barns, and towns you’re not welcome in. Do we need to mention Native Americans and road bandits, both of which are vindictive, cunning in setting up traps, and lethal if encountered head-on?
18. Mystery Society: Relic Match
Mystery Society: Relic Match revolves around a rookie detective on a quest to find stolen treasure. On the way, you’ll have to crack the code, solve puzzles, and connect and match a wide variety of objects on crime scenes. Additionally, you’ll have to rise through the ranks by leveling, and hopefully reach the top position. But besides putting an end to the thievery of historic riches from scenes, the game features hidden artifacts. Those are easter eggs from the game publisher’s other game series, one of which is Hidden Objects.
19. Hero War Escape
Do you need a simple, 2D game featuring a brave hero imprisoned in a castle? Pick Hero War Escape, then. But know that you must do the opposite of the well-known phrase, “If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain”. You can’t move from the cell, so you must use logic and wits to make treasure fall to you through the upper rooms from the castle top. What’s more, your progress is timed, adding suspense, and levels get more sophisticated as you go from one space to the next.
20. A Cat in Dungeons
The last among of our recommended escape games for PC is also the weirdest. Not only is a red cat the protagonist, but the setting is a castle. Also, many define its genre as a puzzle, strategy, or escape room simultaneously, and you must beat 50 challenge levels through turntable tabletop functionality. It’s based on a maze/labyrinth concept but instead of walking, you’ll turn the table to move the environment. There’s a danger of falling grounds, and you must solve riddles and use teleports and unlocking mechanisms to pass through the final door.