Elusion Escape Rooms: From Beyond (Southampton)   

Stranger Things X The Thing

An Arctic research team stopped sending signals shortly after they found something in the Ice.

You have been sent to find out what happened to them…

​We played at Elusion a number of years ago when we played The Pandora Heist and we’ve been itching to get back ever since. In fact we were booked to play and then Covid hit so we’ve been trying to make it work ever since. The stars finally aligned, and we booked a lovely weekend in the New Forest, so we made sure to get booked in to play a few games at Elusion. First up was From Beyond, swiftly followed by Cursed Waters, and Potions and Peril.

Entering the high street location for Elusion is unlike many other escape room venues as when we entered we were in the Dark Arts Potion bar – which you may have guessed is a themed cocktail bar. This seemed to be a very happening and popular place where guests were enjoying their cocktails and playing Elusion’s table top escape games. I definitely want to return again to experience this properly.

I knew pretty much nothing about From Beyond, only what was displayed on the website, but the line that got my attention said…

“A sci fi thriller inspired by Stranger Things, Alien, John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ and similar 80’s Sci-Fi horror.”

I’m a big fan of the 80s and Stranger Things is my jam (in fact I’m currently watching it for the fourth time), so when I saw what this game was inspired by I knew it had to be on our list to play.

Our GM for From Beyond was Owen, but we were also fortunate to meet Drew (Drew has been on the escape room scene for a long time, so it was nice to properly meet him). Elusion have a comfortable room away from the hustle and bustle of the bar where teams receive their room briefings (and health and safety too). Owen left us to watch the mission briefing which was played on the TV in the briefing room, and then he returned to give us our final bits of equipment; torches, and headsets. With all our gear good to go, we followed Owen down the stairs and then we entered the Arctic research centre ready to see what Strange(r) Things may be going on.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

Well they weren’t lying, From Beyond certainly had a weird crossover vibe between Stranger Things and The Thing – and I quite liked it. This was a game of two halves and although the space wasn’t particularly large there was still a good sense of adventure and plenty of space for the two of us.

One thing that Stranger Things introduced me to was the wonderful world of Retrowave/Synthwave music, and I’m very pleased to say that the music that I grew to love in Stranger Things was present in From Beyond.

One of my pet peeves in escape rooms is when they are dark for no reason or they give you just one torch to share between everyone. From Beyond seemed to go to the other extreme, where we had plenty of torches and they were stupendously bright. We were given one torch to take in with us, but we very quickly found more dotted round the room. Wonderful!

The room felt run down in places but I think for the most part that was a design choice. Things were broken but they looked like they were always supposed to be like that. Although there were some items that I would guess were made from some form of foam and these look like they had a hard life – but it was nothing enough to detract from the experience.

PUZZLES

When we first entered the room we were a little lost, well I was, Liz went straight to work on a puzzle before I even knew where I was, but the fact that the game was non-linear in a number of places made it take me a bit longer to work out where to get started.

Once we got going we encountered a range of puzzles; searching, observation, logic, maths (basic) and decoding. The puzzles blended into the surroundings very well and nothing felt out of place, or upside down… Generally the puzzles resulted in codes for padlocks but there was a few bits of tech too.

For a long time in this game I wasn’t sure what we were doing or what our final outcome would be. But then towards the end everything seemed to come full circle and we suddenly knew what we needed and it all made sense.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Something different for the clues in From Beyond, we had what were essentially walkie-talkies but they had ear pieces which we wore. This was a great way to keep the clue system integrated in the theme and it was nice that we both had one so could hear what was said. Walkie-talkies are fine, but this was nice that we could essentially forget about it until we needed it.

I don’t recall ever directly asking for a clue in this game, but at one point I think Owen chimed in to give us a little nudge for something we were tip-toeing around. If we had needed a clue we just had to ask using our devices and I’m sure they would have been received quickly.

ANYTHING ELSE

I had high hopes for this game because of the Stranger Things connection, and what we found was a lovely crossover between that and The Thing. Good set design, satisfying puzzles, and wonderful music made for a fun time.

Success/Failure

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players – escaped in ‘Unknown’

Address: 125 High St, Southampton SO14 2AA

Website: https://www.elusionrooms.com/