The episode—which was written and storyboarded by Tom Herpich, from a story by head writer Kent Osborne, Jack Pendarvis, Ashly Burch, and Herpich—debuted on March 5, 2016 on Cartoon Network.

The story for "The Hall of Egress" was developed by lead writer Kent Osborne, Jack Pendarvis, Ashly Burch, and storyboard artist Tom Herpich.

[9] Herpich was inspired by the M83 songs "Intro", "Reunion", and "OK Pal" from the album Hurry Up, We're Dreaming (2011), all of which mix music with soft, spoken-word elements.

[9] Originally, when he was storyboarding the episode, Herpich included a longer scene that explains how Finn knew what the word "egress" meant.

It was seen by 1.245 million viewers and scored a 0.3 Nielsen rating in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic (Nielsen ratings are audience measurement systems that determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States), which means that the episode was seen by 0.3 percent of all individuals aged 18 to 49 years old who were watching television at the time of the episode's airing.

Club awarded the episode an "A–", calling it "a fascinating psychological horror story about a boy shedding everything that defines him in order to move on to the next phase of his life.

"[14] Tran contended that, through the use of video game tropes, explores the idea that life is ultimately unpredictable that there "is no map that you can make for yourself (or that anyone can give you) that can account for everything you’re going to encounter".

[14] "The Hall of Egress" has been highly lauded by the show's production staff, with series creator Pendleton Ward in particular naming it as one of his favorites.