Quebec City, May 2025
I might have been humming the Terminator 2 theme music in the run-up to this room, but even the smallest bit of research into its them would have told me that there’s no connection or indeed similarity there; the name instead refers to justice in the sense of the judicial system. The website doesn’t give you much information about the story beforehand, so I won’t add details here; but you’re in a house that was the scene of a tragedy, working out what happened.
Over recent years I’ve noticed people starting to refer to a European style of escape room, although the style they mean is far from universal within Europe and is sometimes recognisable elsewhere – as with this game. As I understand the term, it suggests sprawling game sets, a focus on narrative and immersion, and also, often, use of live actors. All of those apply to Judgement Day.
I get the impression that this game was originally designed around a specific concept, but then grew some way beyond it. That original idea is still a striking sequence mid-game, but may not even be the bit that sticks with you longest after playing. At 75 mins this is a bumper-size room, and much of it seemed spent exploring – and getting disorientated in – corridors with darkness or ominous red lighting. The low lighting was carefully managed to create atmosphere and tension without interfering with our ability to solve puzzles, and at each step we received more information about the narrative, one piece at a time.
Some of those narrative pieces weren’t clear to me at the time, though that didn’t matter too much; they still served to build the setting, and the overall thrust was clear enough. The picture that builds up is not a reassuring one, though by my jaded standards I’d count it more as ‘tension’ than ‘terror’. Increasingly the puzzle-based progress of the earlier game transitions to high-energy segments with more interactivity, and for me these were the game highlights, striking an excellent balance between the theme’s scarier side and fun, physical gameplay. For me that capped off what was already an impressive and memorable game. Quebec City is a city well worth visiting anyhow, but if you need an excuse to include it in your plans, Judgement Day provides one. 
