Room Escape Artist

Sherlock Holmes is one of the best escape rooms in Berlin, Germany. Here are our recommendations for other great escape rooms in Berlin.

Herr Holmes is missing… and so is our cake.

Location: Berlin, Germany

Date played: September 4, 2017

Team size: 2-8; we recommend 2-4

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: from 19€ per ticket

Story & setting

Professor Moriarty has returned and Sherlock Holmes has gone missing. By order of Scotland Yard, we were granted permission to break into 221B Baker Street and learn the fate of the world’s most famous detective.

Our mystery was staged within a large, grim, wood-furnished apartment-esque space. It looked pretty good, but felt entirely too empty. This barren set, however, excelled at building tension.

Puzzles

In Sherlock Holmes, Escape Berlin wanted us to deduce our way through the room escape. I didn’t realize this until after the fact, but the puzzles were all almost complete, threads dangling and waiting for connection. In its own weird way, Sherlock Holmes felt like a detective game.

Standouts

All of the puzzles within Sherlock Holmes were effectively deduction games. That felt appropriate.

Sherlock Holmes traversed a large, minimalistic, and foreboding gamespace. Through a combination of lighting, sounds, and space, Escape Berlin created an uneasiness that added tension to every interaction.

Sherlock Holmes included some strange and unexpected puzzles. These were a lot of fun.

You can’t really go wrong with a good Portal reference.

Shortcomings

The large gamespace wasn’t particularly intriguing in and of itself. Sure, a lot of players could fit into the space, but it wasn’t well used.

Sherlock Holmes was a linear escape room in a massive space. At times it was challenging to determine where to direct our attention. When we slowed, we ground to a halt.

Should I play Escape Berlin’s Sherlock Holmes?

Sherlock Holmes was an escape room of deduction puzzling. This stylistic choice worked well for the theme and the space.

We haven’t seen too many escape rooms build tension the way Sherlock Holmes did. It was just the two of us in this largely empty space and I was on edge the entire time, in a good way.

While Sherlock Holmes created a particular atmosphere, the set itself was not particularly interesting to traverse or explore.

If you like detective puzzling, and you’re okay with a bit of intensity, I recommend Sherlock Holmes. It would be fun for puzzle-focused players of any experience level.

Book your hour with Escape Berlin’s Sherlock Holmes, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

For a local perspective, see Escape Maniac (in German).

Full disclosure: Escape Berlin comped our tickets for this game.