The Escape Game: Hanna Unlocked review

Ably assisted by its connection to the TV series Hanna, this game is a highly cinematic experience featuring lots of video clips and other multimedia elements. It’s an extension of everything that The Escape Game did with their other two online games but then taken up a notch given the association with a high profile series. It’s more of the same but amplified.

Everything I’ve played by The Escape Game has been consistently top notch. However this fully online escape room is free, so I wondered if the quality would be affected. It wasn’t. Hanna Unlocked still has the professional high quality visuals and gameplay as their paid for games. It is based on Amazon Prime’s drama Hanna which has just started its second series. If you’ve never seen the show before, like me, or need a reminder, there’s a short video at the beginning of the game to help fill you in. But it doesn’t affect the gameplay if you’ve never watched the show.

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These were fresher than most with the opening task being a fun bit of observation that promoted a good level of debate during play! There was one puzzle that didn’t quite work for us as it’s potentially subjective in the same way that smell based activities sometimes are. One slightly annoying thing here is that there’s one part that will penalise non-US players. My main observation with this game was that all the puzzles were well integrated into the story, the story meshed seamlessly with what you had to do in the game.

The puzzles are interactive, requiring you to manipulate what you see on screen. You’re also sent out of the game a few times, whether it’s to Google Maps or your phone. The first puzzle is quite an involved one to start you off with, with lots of text, audio and video that needs collating to get the answer. This might not appeal to everyone. But then later on, one task was super easy so there’s a right mix of difficulties here.

One task uses sounds which we really struggled with. Whether our hearing isn’t very good or the sounds were distorted over Google Meet, we had to give up and get the answer. This is the problem with audio based puzzles. You need to call a US phone number to get one of the answers which could cost non-US folk a bit of money. Although you could just get the answer from the clues section instead.

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I had a lot of fun with this one. It’s extremely polished and well-presented with a fresh story as far as online games go. Everything worked well and we didn’t find anything illogical. It’s clear that The Escape Game are a dependable name in the arena of online escapes.

This is a fun game with a great design and flowing and testing puzzles. It’s a little bit samey to their other online games though with the same premise of tracking someone down. But it kept 5 of us occupied for almost 90 minutes with varied missions.

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It’s free and it’s also a very good game. Easy way to put this, I would not have felt shortchanged if I had paid to play this game. It’s not just an extended, obnoxious ad as I had somewhat expected so there’s really no reason not to give this one a go!

There have been no corners cut in making this free game. The website interface, puzzles and gameplay are all on par with The Escape Game’s other excellent online offerings. You’re effectively playing an advert for Amazon Prime, but you soon forget you are as it’s very seamless and doesn’t affect the game. There’s no reason not to give Hanna Unlocked a go.

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