Room Escape Artist

Warehouse Treize

Location: Clichy, France

Date Played: March 19, 2026

Team Size: 2-4; we recommend 2-4

Duration: 90 minutes

Price: from €140 per team of 2 to €180 per team of 4

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: Players enter the game through a tight passage. There are also tight transitional spaces. All players need to crawl and walk down stairs.

Emergency Exit Rating:  We were both unsure of – and concerned about – emergency exits at multiple points throughout the experience.

REA Reaction

Artifact Escape Game is a beloved company for a number of very clear reasons. The games are made with a lot of love, by a family who clearly adores escape rooms, and it’s hosted in their own home.

The Prime Artifact has some novel puzzle designs, a variety of environments, some bold interaction designs, and a Warehouse 13-inspired story (which, if you haven’t seen it, is a fun show that asks the question, “What if the warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Arc was filled with magical artifacts from throughout history and managed by a secret organization?”) Put more directly, The Prime Artifact was a fun game.

All of this gets blended with the hype that forms around a game that is extremely difficult to book, especially for travelers. Artifact Escape Game has very few booking slots, they show up randomly, and are available for limited windows over Instagram. The exclusivity of Artifact Escape Game has added a lot to their mystique.

And I wish that I could simply stop writing at this point… but unfortunately… I have a lot of safety concerns about The Prime Artifact. The game designers have assumed a great deal of risks on behalf of themselves and their players, including:

• Disgusting untreated water that players must reach their hands into (Read more about water safety and escape rooms).
• Open flames in the form of candles (Read more about fire safety and escape rooms).
• A fall hazard that emerges within a tight, fogged room (I haven’t written about fall hazards yet, but that’s coming).
• A possible blue laser that Artifact Escape Games insists is a blue light with a special lens focusing it. (I hope that they are right about that. And if proven, I’ll happily remove this from the review… but there’s so much risk in this game that my trust level is low. Read more about laser safety and escape rooms).
• And to top this all off, there was a complete lack of egress. Getting to the game within their property was a real journey… which is cool under normal circumstances, but I have no idea how they would get someone out quickly in a medical crisis, or how I would leave in the event of a fire.

The folks from Artifact Escape Game insist that their game has been reviewed by local officials and given their blessing. I don’t really know what to make of that claim given the apparent high level of fire safety in Parisian escape rooms in general.

I understand why people adore The Prime Artifact and the company’s other game 404 (review coming soon). There’s a big part of me that loved this game. And to top it all off, I adore that a family has put this much passion into making games into their home. Artifact Escape Game’s website has the words, « La passion ne donne pas de talent, elle donne du courage pour travailler plus. » In English, this translates to, “Passion doesn’t give you talent, it gives you the courage to work harder.” I could not agree more. The folks at Artifact Escape Game have put in the hard work to make fun and unique games. Now it’s time to turn that passion towards putting in the work to keep players safe.

Who is this for?

• Adventure seekers
• Puzzle lovers
• Warehouse 13 fans
• Best for players with at least some experience

Why play?

• To experience this insane passion project
• Incredibly charming 
• You can feel the love for escape rooms in this game

Story

We had joined a secret society known as The Archivists: a group of people dedicated to securing objects of historical importance that exhibit extraordinary powers. One such object was known at The Prime Artifact. The now deceased, Archivist Weiss had spent her career in pursuit of this object, but never managed to retrieve it. There had been reports that its location had been compromised, so it became our task to follow in her footsteps and complete her work, ensuring that The Prime Artifact did not fall into the wrong hands.

Setting

The Prime Artifact had us exploring an expansive world inspired by Warehouse 13. Whether we were inside of a room storing artifacts, or out in the field looking for one, The Prime Artifact had a wide variety of settings, and a level of authenticity that might have benefitted from a bit more restraint and safety considerations.

Gameplay

Artifact Escape Game’s The Prime Artifact was a standard escape room built in and around a residence in Paris.

The most challenging thing about it was getting a booking. It’s run by the family that lives in the residence, and only available when they are available to run it. Bookings are announced via their Instagram page on relatively short notice.

The gameplay was moderately difficult.

Core gameplay revolved around searching, making connections, and solving puzzles. We also have to navigate some tight passages.

Analysis

➕ The Prime Artifact was an escape room player’s dream come true. Literally. A family of escape room enthusiasts built the adventure game they wished they could play. It had an in-world introduction, unusual sets, surprising transitions, challenging puzzles, and a fancy MacGuffin. While playing this game, we could feel that it was made with an abundance of love and passion. The creators clearly cared a lot about providing an exciting and memorable adventure.

➕ Artifact Escape Game staged an unusual opening. The character was funny. There were costumes. We were immediately bought in to this fictional world.

➕ Each set was surprising, and completely different from the previous one. Scene changes were often revealed through dramatic effects.

➕ The gameplay was paced well, with puzzle-focused scenes sandwiched between scenes that leaned on the appeal of the sets and were more task-oriented.

➖ In terms of gameplay, our main critique was the extensive searching in low light. The flashlights we received were not adequate. When gameplay stalled, it was always on a search-fail.

➖ Our second gameplay critique was the paper-based clue structure, again, in low light. We found and read a lot of instructions and diagrams on papers. These were a bit of a chore to keep track of and burdensome to parse.

➕ Artifact Escape Game paid attention to little in-game details, for example, adding amusing wording that made observant players smile.

➕ Artifact Escape Game built puzzles around old-timey props that were fun to interact with.

➕/➖ When we played, character-based hinting had recently been added, making hinting more fun and more a part of the overall adventure. That said, hints weren’t always clearly audible, and we anticipate this hinting mechanism will won’t wear well.

➕ When we reached the end of our quest and secured the prime artifact, the finale effects delivered.

➕ The Warehouse 13-inspired aesthetic and accompanying jokes were delightful. It’s rare that a favorite part of a game is reading random prop descriptions, but that’s something that The Prime Artifact achieved.

❌  We have serious safety reservations with the design of this experience. The Prime Artifact includes:

• Untreated water. Gameplay requires players to reach into this water. This presents serious health risks.
• Fire. There were candles in a small room where there were also papers (and water) and no clear egress method.
• A blue laser? There is no safe use of a blue laser. (Artifact Escape Game insists that this isn’t blue laser, and I hope they are right… but I don’t know. If this was my only concern, I’d be more understanding.)
• A risk of falling. There is a fog-filled space where it is not especially difficult to take a very dangerous fall.
• Questionable egress.(Artifact Escape Game claims that their games have been inspected by the authorities and are safe. We are not sure whether or not to be dubious of the claim or the safety inspectors.)

➖ There was a lot of fog. Fog is not inherently unsafe, but we struggled with a lengthy debrief in a room that was overly foggy.

Tips For Visiting

• There is limited parking nearby, but Artifact Escape is only a few minutes walk from the Mairie de Clichy metro stop (M13) and also walkable from Porte de Clichy (M14.)
• This game is available in French or English.
• Available bookings are limited, and aren’t announced very far ahead. We recommend following their Instagram to know when bookings become available.
• 👖 We recommend knee pads. Consider these escape pants.