The series follows The Savant as he finds himself in an estate in a past era, where he invites a number of guests to a party which requires them to act and dress as various personas from that era. Once there, they are cut off from the outside world, challenged to survive the night and escape the estate. To do this, the gueststeam up with him to participate in challenges and escape room puzzles, competing with each other to escape from the historical era by solving and completing them. At the end of each episode, two guests are voted into a challenge to compete against each other, where the losing guest is eliminated via a fictional death until one or more guests ultimately win and are sent back to the modern world.
Production
When YouTube Premium launched in October 2015, Graceffa's show was one of ten exclusive original series scheduled to debut in 2016, and was still an untitled project. The series was set to be produced by Brian Graden Media, and began filming in a house near Valencia, California. Graceffa said that the show was inspired by an episode of television show Lizzie McGuire themed around a murder mystery, and was also closely related to the 1985 filmClue. Graden called the show "a hybrid between scripted mystery and reality elimination show". The series debuted on June 22, 2016, with two episodes going live. The premiere episode had 11.3 million views and 1.1 billion social impressions. The show was renewed for a second season in October 2016, and was scheduled to debut on June 22, 2017. In May 2018, Graceffa confirmed there would be a third season, which debuted on June 21, 2018. The fourth season, which made it the longest running original series on YouTube, premiered on July 11, 2019. The first episode of season 4 premiered simultaneously at VidCon during a panel conference with Graceffa, and was also available to watch for free on YouTube.
Escape the Night: Escape Room
The Escape the Night: Escape Room was an immersive escape room centered around the fourth season of Escape the Night. The escape room was a limited event exclusively in Beverly Hills, California, that ran from August 9, 2019, to August 27, 2019. The escape room had multiple rooms to venture through, with surprise guest appearances from Graceffa, Jack O'Connor, and Eva Augustina Sinotte.
In June 2020, Graceffa announced via vlog that due to COVID-19's impact on Hollywood and television, season 5 was suspended, but teased a new interactive fan version. Fans of the show signed up to an email list in order to receive updates about the new project. In July 2020, a Kickstarter campaign was started to fund a board game based on the series; its goal of $30,000 was achieved in just 3 hours. It was formally announced the next day. In June 2020, it was confirmed that YouTube Premium had declined to renew the show for a fifth season, canceling its longest running original series.
Note: There was an extra guest at the start of the season in the form of "The Renegade", Played by Shane Dawson. In the storyline, Shane knew about the evil of the house as a member of the "Society Against Evil" and informed Sarah the maid that he knew what she was doing. As a result, the evil saw Shane as a threat and poisoned him. In order to save him, the other guests had to complete a puzzle task within a time limit. They failed, resulting in his death. Interview's with production staff confirm that even if the group had completed the task in the time limit, he would have been killed anyway by Marvin the ground's keeper when the car exploded later in the episode.
