The Ladder
Los Angeles, CA • Ongoing
Escape rooms first appeared in Japan in the 2000s, and by the early 2010s they had spread around the world. The first versions stayed true to the name: single locked rooms from which visitors were challenged to escape by solving a series of puzzles. As the phenomenon grew, escape room providers entered a veritable arms race, incorporating into their works better set design, more advanced technology, more complex puzzles, and, slowly but surely, more complex narratives. Today, escape rooms are bridging the gap between the form’s early puzzle-solving roots and the modern world of immersive theater. No room embodies that evolution better than The Ladder, an LA-based attraction from Hatch Escapes.
In LA, there is an escape room that is helping to rewrite the rules of the form.
Walk into The Ladder and the first thing you’ll notice is its high production values. Constructed over five years on a million-dollar budget, the room is in fact a sprawling complex featuring eight distinctive sets meticulously themed according to different decades, each with its own slew of puzzles and custom musical score. Along with the production’s scale, its attention to detail is impressive: In the 80s room, for instance, you’ll find arcade cabinets running custom-developed, in-world spinoffs of classic arcade games like Donkey Kong.
The Ladder’s crowning achievement, however, and the piece that truly sets it apart from any other escape room we’ve experienced, is its narrative ambition. Spanning five decades, the story charts your character’s rise through the corporate ranks of shady, Omaha-based vitamin manufacturer Nutricorp. Every choice you make and every puzzle you solve impacts the final outcome, with 12 possible endings to discover. Along the way, you can start a family, hire a secretary, develop your character, and face down your rival, the unscrupulous Stab Backner (portrayed in cinematic cutscenes by Entourage’s Jordan Belfi). The writing is sharp and funny, and most importantly, it invites you to participate in and shape a full-fledged storyline—territory into which few escape rooms have truly ventured.
To a purist, The Ladder may not register as an escape room at all. There is no countdown timer and no way to lose; the story advances whether or not you successfully complete the puzzles. And, more fundamentally, the point of The Ladder is not to escape a room; rather, it is to escape reality for roughly 90 minutes and engage instead in a captivating, exciting, and often absurd adventure into the annals of corporate America. It accomplishes this feat with resounding success, and thanks to its intriguing storyline, branching narrative, and treasure trove of secrets (far too many to discover in just one run), it’s one of the few escape rooms where, once you’ve “escaped,” you’ll likely find yourself wanting to go back in.
Details
Status
Now Showing
Location
1919 3rd Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90018, USA
Published : November 4, 2025
Sources : Hatch Escapes
