ER Champ 2025 Finals are completed! The Finals, broadcast live from Sofia, Bulgaria, brought viewers a thrilling competition with only seconds separating first, second, and third place. I wont spoil who was who, so if you’re curious, check out the stream or the results page. Congrats to the winners!
The full eight hour broadcast is still available for later viewing. This year brought a whole slew of enhancements – clear guides for viewers to be able to follow the sequence of puzzles easily, innovations that enabled true escape rooms rather than props in an empty space, separate streams for commentary / interviews vs. raw video of the competition, and many more.
I also noted that the Youtube viewer count on the stream with commentary is already, 13 days after the event, about 40% higher than the total on the sole stream from 2024. It’s really exciting to see this competition continue to grow, both for participants and spectators.
One minor spoiler I will call out that I thought was very cool – the top four finishers were all from different countries. That’s one of the things that I’m always excited to see, that the competition is truly a global one.
The rooms were very impressive, and the structure of how the competition played out was quite fun. Room 1 was the major hurdle for teams to clear. Frontrunner teams showed early that the first room wasn’t going to be easy. Watching subsequent teams try their hand at it, with varying degrees of success, was thrilling. I loved watching for if/when the first team would break through.
With only seconds deciding the final results, it also created a lot of tension/excitement watching teams blaze through room 2, knowing that even a great performance might not be good enough. This was some of the best entertainment coming out of ER Champ to date.
I also love the sheer creativity in some of the physical puzzles. My favorite touch was a treasure chest that shouts at teams to leave the room and opens just a crack once all players have stepped outside. Just enough to see some hidden information inside the lid! Kudos to the team for putting together a type of puzzle I’ve never seen before in a spotlight moment like this.
I’m already looking forward to designing for the 2026 qualifiers. Contributing to this event is always one of the highlights of my year. I’m passionate about cultivating thought-based competitions, and right now there’s no better forum for creative solvers than ER Champ.
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