The Backrooms–the iconic, yellow, liminal corridors that feel designed by unnerving dream logic–have gone from the subject of a 2019 forum post to a major movie adaptation in just seven years. It’s a trajectory that outpaces Slenderman, its predecessor in the burgeoning creepypasta-to-Hollywood pathway. Backrooms YouTube videos have dominated the time between that first post and today, to the extent that the A24-produced horror movie coming out on May 29 is directed by the 20-year-old Kane Parsons, whose YouTube channel blew up in popularity thanks to his unsettling Backrooms videos.
But it’s not just on YouTube where you’ll find dozens of hours of Backrooms and liminal-space stories. Video games have been obsessed with the Backrooms for years now, to the extent that searching for the term on Steam turns up nearly 600 results–and that doesn’t even count the many games that don’t use that word in their titles, but are focused on the same subject matter.Â
Naturally, the quality of these games varies greatly. Beyond the vaguely unsettling walls themselves, what makes a Backrooms game can differ greatly, from co-op campaigns full of puzzles, to walking sims devoid of monsters, to full-on survival-horror experiences.
Among all of the many Backrooms games playable today, a few stand out as highlights. If you want to get acquainted with what the Backrooms are, consider this your starter guide to the world of the best Backrooms video games.
Puppet Combo’s The Backrooms
One of the newest of the hundreds of Backrooms games is also one of the best, which is maybe no surprise if you’re familiar with the team that made it. Puppet Combo is a small indie team specializing in horror games with PlayStation 1 aesthetics. I was really excited to see them take on a liminal-space game because they so often do slasher, grindhouse-feeling stuff, making this an intriguing departure.Â
The Backrooms still has the studio’s look and feel, but it also benefits from the team’s style of storytelling, which I didn’t think I cared to have in a game like this until I saw Puppet Combo do it very well.
The Complex: Expedition
One of the first Backrooms games I played was one I stumbled upon that doesn’t even mention the word in its title. The Complex: Expedition is a first-person Backrooms walking-sim horror game from pgWave. Strangely, it’s also sort of like a spiritual successor to the team’s only other game, The Complex: Found Footage, in that they’re both Backrooms games but this latter effort is a bit more complex and polished. Expedition tells a different story and improves on its predecessor’s visual fidelity, though it still looks quite lo-fi, which players tend to prefer in these games.Â
I won’t spoil whether it has monsters or not, as I felt like not knowing was so much of the appeal for me, but I’d highly recommend this one if you want a good blend of eerie liminal-space vibes and just a whiff of a story to keep you seated til the end. I loved it.
Escape The Backrooms
Perhaps the most popular Backrooms to date, Escape The Backrooms is an enjoyable mess. Enemy AI can be frustrating, it doesn’t look great (even in a genre where not looking great is often intentional), and some of its gameplay mechanics don’t always feel so intuitive. But it makes up for some of those drawbacks by offering a fun co-op experience through an encyclopedic range of Backrooms levels.
About half a decade ago, when Backrooms lore really hit the internet in a big way, different communities ran with it, creating something like a lore bible full of creepy rooms, arcane rules, and violent creatures. This side of Backrooms content tends to be the preference for younger audiences–personally, I’m just in it for the vibes–but if you want to go on a tour of the many “official” Backrooms, let Escape The Backrooms be your guide.
Dreamcore
I’ve not decided whether The Complex is my favorite Backrooms game, or if it’s Dreamcore. It’s close. What I love about Dreamcore is how many different environments it takes you through. Yes, you’ll spend some time in the labyrinthine yellow halls, but you’ll also explore many other liminal-space hits, like an abandoned mall, an unnerving children’s playground, and “Eternal Suburbia,” a town of identical homes built on rolling green hills.
If you happen to enjoy liminal spaces in a broader context, Dreamcore is drenched in the kind of atmosphere that I’ve spent months training my Instagram algorithm to show me. As of this writing, its final update has just been released, so I’ll be jumping back in to see it through to the end.
Pools
Pools is probably the most popular liminal-space game that doesn’t feature the Backrooms proper. Is it cheating to include it here? Maybe, but if you’re into this sort of thing, I bet you’ll still love it. Based on one of the alternate rooms that Backrooms lore claims you can end up in, Pools is a gorgeous exploration of the Poolrooms.Â
Like many games of this nature, it’s mainly here for the unsettling, oddly dreamy feeling of these spaces, though it has a few genuine scares I found both subtle and clever. While I love the Backrooms themselves, Pools is a well-polished adventure down a differently haunted corridor.
Eternal Afternoon
Okay, even if Pools isn’t cheating, Eternal Afternoon definitely is. This is quite unlike the other games on this list, but it has one important thing in common with them, and by now you can guess what that is: the vibe. Eternal Afternoon is a game about the end of the world. As a little kid, you have 20 minutes to spend your final moments how you prefer, and you can’t see it all in one go, so replaying it brings you to other endings and encounters.
Will you sit by your mom and watch a tidal wave crash on top of your city? Will you explore the disquieting neighborhood as others take the impending apocalypse, uh, less well than you? Will you say screw it all and just play video games? It’s up to you, but with its PS1 visuals, a faint sense of longing and nostalgia, and a soundtrack that would feel right at home in any of the other games on this list, Eternal Afternoon has its own wonderful liminal qualities.
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