Bookings now open for new immersive experience in Cardiff

Nation Cymru staff

A brand new, immersive experience opens up in Cardiff city centre later this month, and we guarantee you won’t find anything else like it in the city.

Exitus Origins, a new venue from the team behind Exitus Escape Rooms, will open on John Street Friday 30th October. Rather than a traditional escape room, players (or “recruits”) will step into a fully immersive experience that unfolds around them, bringing a new element to traditional Exitus game-play.

The experience sees players embark on a whirlwind journey to commandeer a submarine from out of enemies hands. Led by a group called Aether, players must help bring back a submarine which was taken from them more than a decade ago. Aether needs the best engineers and archaeologists to support the mission, and that’s where players come into the story.

The story runs continuously throughout the venue; set, sound and cast are all built to keep players immersed in the experience from the moment they arrive using all their senses in a way you’d never think possible.

Exitus Origins is founded and built entirely by co-owners Mandy Hale and Ceri Steed, who take every room from storyboard and design through to the physical build themselves. There’s genuinely no outside builders or external help. It’s a female-founded venue, built end-to-end by the two women behind it.

Mandy Hale, co-founder of Exitus Origins, said: “We’ve spent a long time developing Exitus Origins, and we’re so excited to finally show it to the world. It’s the first time we’ve built a space around one continuous story, rather than a series of separate puzzle rooms, and we promise that it’s not going to be like anything you’ve seen in the city ever before.

“Our story is built around the lore of Arwen, a world we’ve developed that brings fantasy, Welsh folklore and game-play into one. Everyone who steps inside the submarine will have to use their senses to help Aether take it back from Atlas – their enemy who stole it from them years before.

“From the moment you enter the venue, you’ll be stepping into the world of Arwen. You have to truly experience it to see the love and effort we’ve put into creating this world.” ”

The new venue opens to the public on Friday 30th October 2026, and tickets are available to book here.

To familiarise yourself with the lore of Arwen, make sure to follow @exitusorigins on social media for clues and teasers.

---

Get more trusted Welsh news

Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.