At A Glance
Released: 8/18/22
Reviews: 7242, net very positive, as of 12/2023
English Reviews: 4495
Localized in: english
Had Publisher: no
Majority of reviews:
English ~62%
Simp. Chinese ~9%
Russian ~8%
Price: free
Review report:
Negatives: optimization issues for lower end devices, could possibly give motion sickness, some people weren’t scared/didn’t feel like anything else was present with them,
Positives: Seems like having no entity directly present made the game a better experience to explore, lighting was excellent, doesn’t rely on jumpscares, excellent atmosphere and uncanny environment, horror in the game gives you a deeper level of dread as opposed to others,
Gameplay
Zoom functionality, sprinting, crouching, and walking
An elevator is at the far end of one of the areas that looks like a suburban house basement and takes you to an empty pool area
I was worried the elevator didn't do anything because there was no way to interact with it
Another elevator in the pool area leads somewhere else
Elevators are the level changers
Music
Creepy song starts playing when entering some kind of gymnasium or dance studio
Low droning noise in the pool area
Sounds
Sounds are muffled as if coming through a bodycam or some kind of microphone, different but pleasant
Can hear the low humming of the lights overhead and stomping all over the rugs
Water sloshes when walking through it
Sounds sort of like someone playing with water in a bathtub
Art
A small VHS filter is on the screen, everything is realistic
There is a slight camera shake whenever standing still or moving, adds to the realism (seriously, consider camera shaking at every single point in future games)
Lens smudges add to the realism
Subtle differences in the world indicate areas the player should explore, or at least areas that are different from the normal dimly-lit moist carpet areas
Area with a white box in the corner is confusing, but liminally appropriate
After walking through so many areas that look the same any geometry that looks even slightly off is fascinating
Crouching animation isn’t straightforward, less fluid and matches more closely to how one would move in real life
There are areas with differently colored lights that may serve to guide the player in a certain direction
A dance studio or large open area with wooden floors
There is an area that has an elevator which leads to open pools, like a sauna or spa
Second elevator leads to what appears to be an old musty hotel
New elevator leads to concrete area that appears to lead outside, bugs chirping and nighttime
UI
Options text is a little out of place, too clean, doesn’t match the theme well
Writing
The player falls into the Backrooms, warps in?
At the very end, the camcorder falls out of the Backrooms and the player is presumed trapped
Scare Factor
Very quiet and lonely, based on past iterations of the Backrooms you may be expecting jumpscares so your guard is always up
One of the areas changes into a place with tile walls, I feel like I’ve had a nightmare about it once
Walked for a long while and eventually looped the entire place back to the starting point
At the end of the hallway there appeared to be a circular shape that moved out of view, then subtle breathing begins
A radio can be heard nearby in the hotel area, first contact with something like this
Radio led to an elevator
Inside the radio elevator there was a metallic knocking once the door closed and it started moving
After the knocking the door slowly opened to a dark room full of chairs, really scared me because I didn’t know what to expect
Subtle breathing returned after exiting radio elevator, back in normal Backrooms
Breathing gets louder the deeper we go
Saw some wires? moving in the air in a maze-like structure, disappeared out of sight
Neighborhood is illuminated by red warning light and subtle breathing has returned
Music turns warped and more complex the further down into one house we go
Im leaving, too scary
The final elevator drops after not stopping correctly on the floor
Extra
Made with Unreal
The Backrooms already has a cult following outside of the game universes, and it seems like people are really hungry for these liminal space-exploring games where there may or may not be an unimaginable cosmic horror lurking around
On a personal note, I’d be very interested to know if this was procedural generation or all made by hand
Overall
Absolutely terrifying, even with 0 jumpscares and very few direct sightings of the creature
Reminded me of the worst nightmares I ever had
Taking place in deep, dark places where no one else was and where something far worse than a human was lurking
If this was done by hand then it was a large undertaking because everything is positioned so oddly
As always I feel the game should’ve been localized into other languages, especially because of how little text there was in the game
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