Review: Immersia Escape Games | Salutem Medicina Institute

RATING: 4 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 7:53

This shady clinical trial quickly devolves into an adrenaline-filled fight for survival.

Story

The Salutem Medicina Institute presents itself as an entity that offers all human sciences enthusiasts the opportunity to participate in clinical trials for a drug that can change the world.

However, no one really knows the exact nature of the research or what organization is behind its funding. Local authorities suspect the leaders of the institute to “dispose” of candidates who are not compatible with the experiments carried out and of buying the silence of those who are compatible in order to continue operating in complete secrecy.

The only known information is the fact that one of the candidates, after being used as a guinea pig, allegedly developed psychotic behaviors and decided to lock up young people who rented his shack…

Will your curiosity and potential monetary reward win over your reasoning?

After being lured into the shadowy and definitely not up to health code standards Salutem Medicina Institute, new test subjects find themselves in a much more sinister predicament than was originally advertised. The patient’s nurse, a rather quiet figure who seamlessly drives the plot forward throughout the appointment with gestures alone, has an incredible physical presence, establishing an eerie and unwelcoming atmosphere from the very beginning. The few moments visitors spend with this attendant become some of the most memorable of the experience and create a realistic, horror-movie-like environment, making the hospital feel bigger than it really is.

Apart from the unnerving employee interactions, Salutem Medicina Institute uses screens and media to stage some unsettling events that really get under the participants’ skin. These moments occur due to visitor actions and could be a bit too intense for those who are squeamish and unkeen to violence. What’s seen through the screen elevates the stakes and makes it clear that this place is not just for testing, but also for torture.

The final step in this visit puts patients in the same shoes as the subject they just saw being abused. The transition from being a doer to a receiver turns the experience into one where test groups are in direct control of whether they walk out alive. The switch is adrenaline-fueled and perfectly rounds out the story arc in a heart-pounding, electrifying way.

Scenic

Patients begin their visit at the Salutem Medicina Institute in a worn, dirty, and blood-stained hospital room adorned with a bedpan and several puzzling tests to determine intelligence. With bugs crawling out of the air vent and rust in just about every place it could possibly be, it’s clear that this place does not value aesthetics or cleanliness very highly. It’s difficult to know exactly what happened to previous patients here, but it’s clear it couldn’t have been good.

Moving forward through the lab equipment and offices shows that the rest of the building is just as neglected as the patient rooms. Outdated computer software, blood-stained operating tables, and several scalpels and other medical tools covered with who-knows-what viruses show that this place does not care much about participant safety. The low-light, narrow corridor makes collaboration and movement difficult, especially with larger groups of test subjects, and creates a claustrophobic setting that heightens the unease. A window into the main testing chamber offers a glimpse of what the tests are accomplishing and where victims might end up next.

Puzzles

If the staff here does anything right, it’s creating some genuinely thematic tasks to accurately test participants. They did not just place arbitrary lock boxes around, but created an environment where interacting with the institute is necessary to succeed and make it out in one piece.

The middle act of the appointment ends up blending together due to a repetitive mechanic requiring complex information to be communicated back and forth between different sections of the hospital. It made sense within the space and is justifiable in the environment, but it slowed momentum and was overall an unmemorable part of the trials. The climax brought the energy back brilliantly, requiring intense teamwork and collaboration in an extremely stressful situation, with some shocking external pressures making things a bit more difficult. Before the experiment can officially conclude, everyone needs to be engaged and fully alert to avoid what happened to the last guy who tried to test.

Overall

The Salutem Medicina Institute is home to one of the most unique psychological horror experiments that the public can sign up for. The strong world-building and commitment to character create a genuinely eerie atmosphere that thrives from seeing and experiencing rather than simple jump scares or unnerving set pieces. Only a handful of other institutes could create such an adrenaline-filled experience where you can truly feel the tests being administered as this one has.

Highlighted by the silent, slow nurse, a distressed medical environment in need of a good scrub, and an intense ending where mistakes result in some truly startling effects, this one-hour experiment forces a group of subjects to enact some rather intense effects on others, then experience them for themselves. The use of screens and some very realistic imagery makes the test bigger than just the group of subjects and creates a loop of intensity that has been ongoing for a long time and will likely continue for a while after.