👑 🔒PANIK ROOM - Cobayes [Review]

Open Door 2!

Location: Paris, France

Date Played: March 14, 2026

Team Size: 3-6; we recommend 3-4

Duration: 90 minutes

Price: €35-49 per player

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: All players are required to go down a flight of stairs. Most of the team will be required to crawl, run, and wear a helmet to experience the game fully.

Emergency Exit Rating: [A] Push To Exit with game master overrides

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

2026 Golden Lock Award Winner

“Cobayes is a masterpiece in player agency expressed through a beautifully crafted survival horror experience full of suspense and escalation. Applying lessons learned from The Mystery of the Deveaux Family, PANIK ROOM delivered a unique and engaging horror game that engages a range of player comfort levels.“

https://youtube.com/shorts/s2IPqv1yWUU?feature=share

REA Reaction

We started our sunny Saturday afternoon with PANIK ROOM’s first game, The Mystery of the Deveaux Family (review coming soon), to see what their games were all about. While we had fun in The Mystery of the Deveaux Family, nothing could have prepared us for the masterpiece that was Cobayes. Applying lessons learned from what worked well and didn’t from their previous room, PANIK ROOM took a massive step up in every aspect of asymmetric gameplay and player agency with Cobayes.

A close up on a person from the chest up. They are wearing a helmet and a hazmat suit. They are looking straight at the camera through the window in the helmet.

The strongest part of Cobayes was the unique asymmetric gameplay. A player was sent on a mission into the unknown facility to gather information while the rest of the team helped them with their research from a control room on the other side of the decontamination chamber. The control room provided a unique challenge for players, including multiple distinct support roles. This control room offered an engaging game for every player, including those who were less comfortable (or completely disinterested in) venturing into the depths.

Additionally, PANIK ROOM has mastered the art of mission escalation. Each mission became increasingly more intense, suspenseful, heart pounding, and complex, while still being manageable and an absolute blast for everyone on the team. Note that it’s possible to be too good at these missions, and that can be game-breaking, so if that’s your team, slow down and play as if you were just a bit afraid.

Cobayes was a suspense horror game, but was designed in such a way where the universe allowed each player to tailor their individual experience depending on their comfort level without being pressured. Furthermore, it was a carefully crafted experience from the moment we entered the building through to their approach to standard post-game rituals. Everything was intentional. I’d be personally sad if you missed this while in Paris.

Who is this for?

Adventure seekers
Story seekers
Scenery snobs
Horror fans
Any experience level
Players who don’t need to be a part of every puzzle

Why play?

Heart pounding delves into the unknown equipped with nothing but your helmet
For the chase scenes
A masterpiece of suspense horror with intense player agency

Story

Within the Center Chabrol, a research institute specializing in human experiments, a new species of fungus had been released on 4 test subjects who were condemned to the basement. No one knew why the site had been closed down shortly after, but we could only guess that they were trying to keep someone, or some thing, locked away. Sent to collect information, we had to explore the basement and piece together what had happened on the night of the incident.

a few of two computer monitors above a keyboard, all bathed in green lighting. Red lights emanate from the technology below the screens.

Setting

Cobayes had two distinct sets: the control room and the basement. The control room was perfectly dingy and dirty for a neglected research facility, complete with sprawling monitors, grungy floors, and scribbled-on white boards. The control room was where we spent most of our time, supporting whichever brave teammate ventured out into the condemned basement for a given mission.

The basement portions of the game were equally as frightening as they were detailed. Considering how quickly we moved through the basement, the scenery did far more than it needed to to sell the fiction. Each corner had something new to discover during our missions.

We could not enter the basement without proper protective gear to keep us safe and allow for communication with our teammates.

A person in a gas mask in front of a blood covered wall, with some metal drawers visible in the background

Gameplay

PANIK ROOM’s Cobayes was an asymmetric escape room where one player was sent out into the unknown for each mission, while their teammates directed their gameplay from a control room.

The difficulty is variable depending on your team composition, horror tolerance, and ability to communicate.

Gameplay revolved around going into the basement to complete tasks, and encountering the living beings lurking there. While a teammate went exploring, the rest of the team was engaged with tasks in the control room to guide their teammate to complete their mission and stay alive.

Analysis

➕ The missions were vastly different from one another. We weren’t just completing tasks that added to our knowledge of the space. We were digging deeper into the mysteries the space held. The missions constantly surprised us with new twists and turns every time, and for everyone – not just the sucker outside of the control room.

➕ Cobayes made the gameplay in the control room much more dynamic than that of many asymmetric experiences, including PANIK ROOM’s earlier game The Deveaux Manor. There was never a dull moment and many fun interactions for players who may be more hesitant to complete missions, or were just taking turns.

➖ Our communicator had approximate but not live data, causing information to be slightly out of sync. It is possible to be so good at these missions that the team becomes way out of sync, or the control room is rendered irrelevant. (If this is you, we strongly suggest playing as this experience expects most teams to play, as if you were afraid.)

➕/➖ The cutscenes between real camera footage and pre-filmed video were well integrated and amplified the story. However, we wished the transition between the two wasn’t as jarring. We had trouble context switching.

➕ The narrative was seamlessly woven into the missions and characters. The world PANIK ROOM constructed around us was just as deep as it was horrifying, while still being easy to follow.

A player in a helmet and a hazmat suit inside a decontamination chamber. The sign on the wall says operations followed by an arrow.

➖ There were opportunities for polish, including tech visible within the gamespace, and minor inconveniences such as providing better white board markers for our navigator’s use in the control room.

➕ One late-game interaction took us by surprise, amping up the adrenaline and breaking the barriers of what we knew possible. This interaction felt like a superhero moment for the team.

➕ The end sequence was a true boss battle, with a very rewarding conclusion. The mission was difficult and required full team coordination, but made us feel like we could overcome anything as a team.

Tips For Visiting

Cobayes is at their 15, Rue de Chabrol location, separate from other PANIK ROOM location
If you’re scared to go on the missions but still want to do one, we strongly recommend being the first to go.
This game is available in French and English
👖Even though the padding in each crawl space was LOVELY, we still recommend knee pads. Consider these escape pants.

Book your hour with PANIK ROOM’s Cobayes, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Book Cobayes