Experiential entertainment newcomer Level99 has struck a deal to open its fifth location next year, in Disney Springs at Florida’s Walt Disney World Resort, and aims to expand nationally at a pace of about four locations a year.

Level99 founder and CEO Matt DuPlessie’s vision was to create a challenge-based social entertainment experience that people couldn’t get anywhere else. “We wanted to do something different and really define a new category,” said DuPlessie.

Level99 features interactive challenge rooms that include physical and mental challenges, games and puzzles. Small groups of players can compete in a ninja dojo, walk the plank in a pirate ship or put together a sequence of audio cues in the hall of mirrors to solve a puzzle.

The company has two locations open and three in the pipeline, including Disney Springs. When that location opens in 2026, it will be Level99’s largest, occupying more than 45,000 square feet in a two-level venue with more than 60 challenge rooms that can host upward of 1,000 players at a time.

Level99 also offers a full-service bar and restaurant that serves cocktails, craft beer and a menu that includes its signature Detroit-style pizza, which Boston Magazine recognized as the Best Pizza in Boston. “We’re really trying to do both sides of the business at a high level,” said DuPlessie.

A New Spin on Competitive Socializing

He has a long track record in the design, build and execution of experiential entertainment and themed environments. Since graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1999 and from Harvard Business School in 2003, he has worked in location-based entertainment, including design-build work for theme parks like Disney and Universal Studios. He was an early entrant into escape rooms more than 20 years ago with the launch of his firm 5 Wits. DuPlessie also holds a couple patents, including one related to the systems and methods for interactive physical environments.

With his latest venture, Level 99, he aims to take players to the next level of interactive entertainment. Guests buy a pass for a block of time to explore the venue. Typical locations are 40,000 square feet and feature 50 to 60 challenge rooms. Each room features a one- to four-minute mental or physical challenge. A screen at the entrance of each room describes the game, allowing people to choose which rooms they want to enter.

People are intrigued by the concept when they hear about it over a video call, but when they see it in person and get a chance to play the games and sample the food-and-beverage offering, there’s a lot of excitement, added DuPlessie. One avid supporter is Panera founder and current Cava chair Ron Shaich. Act III, an investment vehicle Shaich founded to help companies scale to become national brands was a major investor in Level99’s first two locations and continues to back its expansion. “When Matt shared his vision for Level99 with me seven years ago, I saw that this business had the potential to define a new category with enormous opportunity for growth on a national scale, making it an ideal investment for Act III,” said Shaich.

One-of-a-Kind Challenge Rooms

Each Level99 location’s challenge rooms add up to more than 30 hours of content. As in video games, guests create profiles and save their progress so they can come back and pick up where they left off. Points they earn as they play lead to digital rewards and potential spots on the leaderboard. In the company’s game design studio, creators and engineers dream up and produce new challenges every year to keep the experience fresh. “Our concept has … really been designed around driving repeat play, and those things will differentiate us in the long term,” said DuPlessie.

He views many current experiential entertainment concepts as “glorified bar businesses” whose profitability relies heavily on alcohol sales. Level99 claims to differ. “We are entertainment driven and entertainment first,” he said. “High-quality food-and-beverage and events are very important to the concept, but the P&L is actually driven by people wanting to be there for the entertainment, which is unique and is developed entirely in house.”

Expansion Plan

The first Level99 opened at Massachusetts’ Natick Mall in 2021, followed by Rhode Island’s Providence Place in January 2024. Now, the company is moving forward with a national expansion. Locations will open this year at Tysons Corner Center in Northern Virginia and The Corbin Collection in West Hartford, Connecticut. “We were honored that our Natick mall was the location of the first Level99,” said Brookfield Properties vice president of leasing Alex Varon. “To say our community has been loving this new entertainment concept would be an understatement. We look forward to helping them expand their great brand in our U.S. retail portfolio.”

Macerich senior vice president of leasing Eric Bunyan said: “Level99 is the ideal entertainment complement to our existing and growing tenant mix at Tysons Corner. We expect a strong mutual benefit between the Tysons and Level99 customer. The entire experience appeals to a wide demographic by not being overly fancy or complex while not being so simplistic that it becomes dull or repetitive.”

After the Disney Springs location opens in 2026, the company expects to be on pace to open four locations per year. “Especially after the Disney announcement, we’re really focusing on the largest 20 to 25 markets across the country,” said Level99 vice president of real estate Doug Schnell. Generally, Level99 is looking at spaces that are roughly 40,000 square feet with at least 14-foot clear ceiling heights, although it will consider locations as small as 30,000 square feet.

“Mainly what we’re looking for is really good real estate in regional nodes where we have some exterior visibility,” said Schnell. “Our F&B experience is really important to the brand, and to the extent that we can provide really good branding and signage for our F&B platform as part of the concept, we’re really looking to do that, even with separate entrances and a patio if possible.” The company also is building an emerging events business, so it’s focusing on locations that have good daytime populations to drive a Monday-through-Thursday crowd in addition to the weekends.

“We generate a ton of traffic with hundreds of thousands of guests a year, and we know that those guests generally stay and shop,” said Schnell, “so there’s some real synergy with malls, but we believe the platform can work as a destination in a lot of different types of real estate.”