Southampton, Aug 2024
I hadn’t visited Elusion for quite a few years, and From Beyond is at their newer High Street venue, which didn’t exist last time I was here. It’s a cocktail bar as well as an escape venue, serving a family-friendly menu with plenty of mocktails, and was a place I’d happily visit even if I weren’t playing an escape room there.
The staff had described From Beyond as being inspired by Stranger Things, but the setting is more like a cross between that and The Thing. You play a team sent to investigate an Antarctic research station that’s gone ominously silent following a discovery of possibly alien material, and you need to recover research materials and discover the fate of the scientists.
The underground space works well at creating the feel of a creepily deserted research station, despite being limited to some relatively small spaces; the unusual torches provided (enough for everyone to have one) helped with that. The story has horror elements I guess, but this isn’t a frightening room; we played as a family group with two young teenagers and there was no problems at all with the content.
We were definitely too large a group – it would be well suited to a pair, not just in terms of available space, but also in the quantity of puzzles. We also played it mostly as if it were linear, though in fact there were various steps that we could have done in parallel if we’d realised.
There’s a mix of padlocks and hidden electronic mechanisms, as well as others, with a good grounding of the puzzles in the narrative. I thought several of the puzzles were quite smart and/or original; this game seemed to have fewer but (somewhat) harder puzzles, often needing the right moment of insight to advance – which might mean a slower game or one where more hints are needed – and despite that I’d still place the game as a whole a little on the easier side of average.
Elusion are a slick operation – this was a solid game, with good hosting and presentation. This seemed like a venue where I could send first-time teams and have confidence that they’d emerge wanting to play more; doubly so because of the lovely bar. Enthusiast teams looking for something to play in Southampton should find this a safe option too. 
