Barcelona, Mar 2022
A secret city hidden under the ocean, built by and for the greatest scientists of the age, now deserted and in danger of destruction… given the premise, it’s appropriate that you’re welcomed by an empty lobby. Spanish games seem to often go the extra mile for immersivity, and while this isn’t exactly a ‘cold start’ escape room, all pre-game logistics are handled with your host carefully in absentia.
As a genre, steampunk lends itself to interesting sets and cool props. Futura takes that and runs with it, with a look that merges historical elegance with fantasy technology. There’s a particular highlight early on, but the attractive set felt immersive throughout.
If the decor boasted an old-fashioned charm, you could say the puzzles did so too – they felt very ‘classic escape room’ in style, including (but not limited to) plenty of padlocks and numeric codes. We were provided with a clipboard and pencil for note-taking, and that was handy at more than one point. Perhaps because the style suited our team’s strengths, we smashed through the game at speed with a lovely sense of momentum, only really getting stuck at one point (due to an unfortunate inability to notice a keypad that was in plain sight…). But although it was a quick(ish) room for us, it still felt satisfyingly full of content, with great flow and momentum.
Barcelona and its surrounding area is a market where it’s tough for escape rooms to stand out, even when they’re as consistently impressive as this one. On an escape room trip to Barcelona, Futura might not warrant the journey out from the centre, given the wealth of alternatives. But if you’re making the journey anyhow – to play Tao, for example – then it makes an excellent add-on. 
