In short: Questions about The President's Bunker, the full-hour successor to The President's Briefcase, opening at Escape This Melbourne CBD in April 2027: the story, the old game, bookings and what's still unannounced.
The President's Bunker is a new full-hour escape room from Escape This, opening at Escape This Melbourne CBD in April 2027. Your team is the President's crisis staff, sealed inside an underground command bunker during a nuclear stand-off, racing to break a lockdown nobody ordered.
A full hour. The President's Bunker is a 60-minute game, double the 30 minutes players had in The President's Briefcase, which gives the redesigned room space for a longer story and more puzzles to crack before the countdown runs out.
The President's Bunker is built as a political thriller rather than a horror room. The tension comes from sealed doors, dead phone lines and a launch clock, not from jump scares. Escape This will confirm age guidance before bookings open.
In the story preview, yes. The black case that carries a president's launch authority, nicknamed the nuclear football, is sealed in the bunker with your team. In The President's Bunker it links the new room to the original game, where a single briefcase was the centre of every puzzle.
The President's Briefcase has closed. Escape This has confirmed it is coming back as The President's Bunker, a bigger, redesigned room that runs for a full hour instead of 30 minutes. The President's Bunker opens at Escape This Melbourne CBD in April 2027.
The President's Briefcase ran at Escape This Northbridge from August 2021 to December 2023, and at Escape This Perth CBD from January 2023 to December 2024. Escape This's booking records show 3,196 people played it in total — 861 at Northbridge and 2,335 at Perth CBD. The President's Bunker carries that story on in Melbourne.
No. The President's Briefcase is no longer running anywhere, so there are no sessions to book. Its successor, The President's Bunker, opens in Melbourne CBD in April 2027; registering interest with Escape This is the way to hear when tickets go on sale.
The President's Briefcase was a 30-minute game played around a single briefcase rather than a whole room. Small teams of two to four could race head-to-head against a rival team on an identical case next door. The President's Bunker replaces it with a full-hour room.
In The President's Briefcase, Air Force One lost contact over the Atlantic while POTUS flew to a world summit with a controversial nuclear deal. Players were the National Security Advisor's taskforce restoring the link. The President's Bunker picks up that nuclear thread in a new setting.
The President's Bunker is the successor to The President's Briefcase: the same presidential nuclear-crisis world, rebuilt as a larger room with a full hour on the clock. You don't need to have played the Briefcase to follow the Bunker's story.
Not confirmed. The President's Briefcase let two teams race each other on identical briefcases, but Escape This hasn't said whether The President's Bunker will offer a head-to-head option. That detail will be published here once it's announced.
Because the Briefcase grew into the Bunker. presidentsbriefcase.com.au was the home of The President's Briefcase, and now that the 30-minute game has closed the same address carries news of The President's Bunker, its full-hour successor in Melbourne.
That's the mystery. In The President's Bunker the lockdown starts from inside, using clearance only a handful of trusted people hold. Working out who triggered it, and what they want the countdown to achieve, is part of how your crisis staff gets out.
In The President's Bunker story, a timer appears on the command wall minutes after the doors lock, and nobody in the room started it. Your team has to restore contact with the surface and stop that countdown before something is done in the President's name.
Your team plays the President's inner crisis staff: the advisers trusted with authentication codes, secure lines and the nuclear football. When The President's Bunker seals, you're the only people in a position to work out what went wrong.
No. The President's Bunker is a fictional command bunker designed by Escape This. Real governments do keep hardened shelters for leaders in a crisis, and that idea inspired the room, but the layout, the lockdown and the plot are invented.
April 2027. Escape This has confirmed The President's Bunker opens at its Melbourne CBD venue on Collins Street that month. An exact first-session date hasn't been announced yet and will appear here as soon as it is.
Not yet. Bookings for The President's Bunker open closer to its April 2027 launch in Melbourne CBD. Register your interest with Escape This to be told when sessions go live.
Pricing for The President's Bunker hasn't been released. The old President's Briefcase prices don't carry over, because the Bunker is a different, longer game. Escape This will publish Melbourne prices when bookings open.
Some could. The President's Bunker is still being built, so story points shown here are a preview. What's confirmed is the full-hour length, the bigger redesign, Melbourne CBD and April 2027; everything else is marked as not yet announced.
Team sizes for The President's Bunker haven't been announced. The Briefcase's limit of two to four players per case doesn't automatically apply, because the Bunker is a larger room. Escape This will confirm numbers with the booking details.
Age guidance for The President's Bunker is still to come. The President's Briefcase allowed players from nine with an adult, but Escape This will set fresh rules for the Bunker before launch.
No difficulty rating has been given for The President's Bunker yet. The Briefcase's 3-to-5 rating belonged to a 30-minute case puzzle; the Bunker is a new full-hour design and will get its own rating closer to opening.
The President's Bunker should appeal to fans of political thrillers and Cold War-style stand-offs, players who remember The President's Briefcase and want the longer version, and Melbourne teams who've already escaped the rooms on Collins Street.
The President's Bunker opens at Escape This Melbourne CBD, 259 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC 3000, a short walk from Flinders Street Station. Melbourne is the only venue announced for the full-hour successor to The President's Briefcase.
Escape This Melbourne CBD answers on (03) 7078 8118 and at melbourne.bookings@escapethis.com.au. The team there can take questions about The President's Bunker and book any of the rooms already open on Collins Street.
Escape This Melbourne CBD already runs Pirates, Pirate Island, Possession, Magic University, Zombie Apocalypse, Meat Grinder, Asylum and Van Helsing. Any of them makes a good warm-up for The President's Bunker; the two pirate rooms are its closest fellow adventures.
Only Melbourne has been announced. The President's Bunker opens at Escape This Melbourne CBD in April 2027, and Escape This hasn't said anything about building it in Perth, Sydney or elsewhere.
Escape This itself. The President's Bunker is an in-house production: Escape This writes, designs and builds its rooms with its own team and its own escape room factory in Perth rather than buying them in. Escape This is Australia’s largest escape room operator, with its own escape room design studio and escape room factory.
Put your name on the Escape This coming-soon list and you'll hear before The President's Bunker sessions go on sale.
