With this week’s theatrical release of A24’s The Backrooms adaptation, I was expecting an avalanche of new Backrooms-themed videogames to appear on Steam. Surprisingly, the number is quite modest: a mere four!
Surely you’ve noticed that Backrooms games have been releasing at a steady clip on Steam for years now. When I search Backrooms on Steam more than 500 results appear. A lot of them are “coming soon” and at a guess, probably won’t release at all, but if I sort by user reviews—because a game needs to be released to have a review—there’s still 225 results. Excluding false positives, I’d estimate that at least 150 of those are actual playable Backrooms games.
And of course, this isn’t counting Roblox Backrooms games, smartphone Backrooms games, and Itch Backrooms games, though naturally there would be some crossover with Steam’s library.
It’s a mess out there. One Steam publisher has 12 Backrooms games, with five more on the way (the most popular of these, Backrooms: What’s Next, has only achieved an all-time concurrent players peak of 9). Others take great liberties with the core premise, for example:
- Backrooms Cats and Lava – the Backrooms except it’s a 2D puzzler starring a cat and the floor is lava for some reason
- Backroom Warfare II – the Backrooms except as a military shooter (and no there’s not a Backroom Warfare I)
- Chained in the Backrooms – the Backrooms except you and three friends are teddy bears who are chained together
- Backrooms Santa – the Backrooms except an evil Santa Claus roams the hallways
- Skibidi Gyatrooms – the Backrooms except strewn with brainrot and first-person cigarette smoking
Given the abundance of these adaptations it’s hard to tell which are actually worth playing and which are just opportunistic cash grabs. Since most fall into the latter category, one must spare a thought for more casual players who aren’t Steam power users: most of these games look very alike, so it’d be super easy to pick something extremely low-effort.
So what’s worth trying? Escape the Backrooms is among the most popular: like countless Backrooms games it’s a first-person, co-op focused outing about navigating and ultimately escaping from an interminable hellscape of yellow hallways. It also features levels based on other popular “liminal spaces” like endless suburbia and pools. Another co-op outing is Inside the Backrooms which takes a more puzzle-centric approach, though it does use AI for some of its in-game paintings.
The most highly regarded single-player Backrooms game, and the one I actually quite like and can recommend if you must play a Backrooms game, is The Complex: Expedition. It plays a bit fast and loose with the better known Backrooms lore, but is absolutely worth playing if you’re drawn to the atmosphere of the film. I’ve also heard good things about Within the Backrooms, which applies a period appropriate PS1 veneer to the setting.
Usually when people criticise Steam for its lack of curation it annoys me: Steam is good because it’s full of random, weird stuff! That’s what makes it fun! If the price we pay is loads of garbage, I think it’s a worthwhile trade off.
But I will concede: finding a good Backrooms game on Steam at the moment is a risky business. One silver lining is that publisher Secret Mode is currently hosting a Backrooms-themed Steam event which handily filters out most of the garbage. That said, the games I listed above should suffice.
At least there’s this: Backrooms games tend to be slightly higher effort than most Italian Brainrot-themed games.
Top Steam games by revenue (May 19 – 26)
Steam releases its top sellers charts on Wednesdays, so the below chart doesn’t factor in some late week releases that might have been big, including 007 First Light and Mina the Hollower, though the former was avialble for pre-order.
|
Rank |
Game |
|---|---|
|
1 |
Forza Horizon 6 |
|
2 |
Counter-Strike 2 |
|
3 |
Subnautica 2 |
|
4 |
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Night |
|
5 |
Paralives |
|
6 |
Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core |
|
7 |
007 First Light |
|
8 |
Marvel Rivals |
|
9 |
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 |
|
10 |
Apex Legends |
Paralives proves yet again that the hunger for a life sim that isn’t The Sims 4 is real. PC Gamer’s Lauren Morton is digging the early access build so far, and it’s reviewing really well on Steam. Could this prove to be everything that Inzoi wasn’t?
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is there because it’s currently 70% off and a new update just released. Otherwise, nothing very surprising here. Will Mina the Hollower factor into next week’s list? I hope so: the studio needs it to be a hit.
Last week’s Steam deep cuts
Steam review of the week
“The fact that if the snail touches you, the game is “bricked forever” (unless you edit the files I’m assuming) and that one of the achievements is staying alive for an entire year, I’ll pass.”
Vex on Don’t Touch The Snail
