What is CBS’s Raid the Cage?

Commercials have been airing on CBS for their brand new game show Raid the Cage. The promise is an allure of amazing prizes. But what is the show exactly and how do you play?

Raid the Cage—known in some parts of the world as Escape Perfecto, or Perfect Escape—is an exciting, originally Israeli format, where teams of two try to answer trivia questions correctly and bank lots and lots of prizes. In the original format, the game consisted of 9 multiple-choice trivia questions. One player answers trivia questions while the other attempts to raid said prize cage. Once the answering teammate answers correctly, the other teammate must grab as many prizes as they can and leave the cage before time runs out. Smaller prizes are just grab and go, while larger prizes may require extra time-eating challenges. There’s no clock in the cage either so players must have an innate sense of timing in order to get out of the cage in time.

Want a car? You might have to do a few physical challenges—and then push the car out of the cage, as seen in this clip from the Vietnamese version of the show:

If a player gets caught in the cage, their game is over. If the players get through 9 rounds and answer a final question correctly, they win every prize in the cage! The show has been ported to many countries with seemingly very little variation in the gameplay or set design, so it seems unlikely that CBS is going to make too many changes to the game here, but we’ll keep you posted. Raid the Cage premieres on CBS Friday, Oct. 13 at 9:00 PM.