Project 7: Escape Room gets out on Steam

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

New first-person 3D puzzler released from M9 Games, creator of ALUMNI, VENARI and SUBNET and more

Well, it's about time! The year is more than half over and we hadn't yet got a new puzzle-adventure from M9 Games. Fortunately the wait is over, as the prolific indie British developer has just released their latest title, Project 7: Escape Room.

Eighteen months ago, a "secretive research initiative" called Project 7 was suddenly shut down and its leader, the "renowned inventor and physicist, Dr. Hillman," disappeared from his remote mansion without a trace. Rumours abound about what happened there, and players now step into the first-person shoes of an investigator who decides to "spend a night at the mansion" in the hopes of turning up clues to the professor's whereabouts and his hush-hush experiments. Little are you prepared for what awaits you, however, and you soon find yourself waking up "in the dead of night ... trapped in your room." Now the "only way out is to delve deeper into the mansion's secrets, solving intricate puzzles and deciphering mysterious notes left around by Dr. Hillman." You'll either succeed in unraveling the enigma of this place, or "become another forgotten part of Project 7."

A free-roaming 3D adventure with a heavy emphasis on exploration, item collection and escape room-style puzzles, for the most part Project 7 looks and handles much like the developer's other recent releases, such as ALUMNI, VENARI and SUBNET, to name just a few. This game, however, is the first made using the Unreal Engine, so it includes some interface tweaks and new ways to physically interact with the environment, such as pushing buttons, rotating items, even picking up and carrying the larger ones in your hands to where they're needed, with a greater emphasis here on integrated problem-solving rather than standalone brainteasers. A few "slight" jump scares should keep you on your toes, but as always with M9, you're free to take your time and overcome obstacles in whatever order you wish (or are able), with a full save system allowing you to record your progress at will. 

You can start digging into the secrets of Project 7 right away, as the game is available now to download on Steam for Windows PC. A Switch version is currently in production as well, with plans for PlayStation and Xbox releases further down the line.