BACKROOMS ANOMALY Review: Trust Nothing, Especially That Chair

The Backrooms have become horror gaming's equivalent of zombies. There are so many of them now that it takes something genuinely clever to stand out from the endless procession of yellow walls, flickering lights, and existential dread. Thankfully, BACKROOMS ANOMALY understands that atmosphere alone isn't enough. Instead of simply throwing monsters at you, it turns your own perception into the enemy.

Set within the familiar maze of Level 0, your objective sounds deceptively simple. Walk through a looping corridor, study your surroundings, and determine whether anything has changed. Spot an anomaly and you turn back. See nothing unusual and you continue forward. Make enough correct calls in a row and you escape. Mess up, and you're back to questioning whether that filing cabinet was always there.

What makes the game work is how effectively it weaponises uncertainty. Early anomalies are obvious enough to build confidence, but before long you're squinting at walls, examining posters like a detective, and second-guessing details you'd swear you'd memorised seconds earlier. The fear doesn't come from jump scares. It comes from doubt. Every corridor traversal becomes a mental battle between confidence and paranoia.

The visual design deserves credit for understanding exactly why the Backrooms remain compelling. The endless fluorescent-lit corridors are mundane enough to feel believable, yet unsettling enough to feel wrong. The environment captures that strange dreamlike quality that fans of liminal horror crave. Nothing appears overtly threatening, yet everything feels slightly off. It's the digital equivalent of waking up in an empty office at 3 a.m. and realising you're completely alone.

Of course, comparisons to The Exit 8 are inevitable. Even members of the Steam community have pointed this out directly. The core loop shares obvious DNA with the anomaly-spotting phenomenon that inspired a wave of similar games. However, while BACKROOMS ANOMALY doesn't radically reinvent the formula, it successfully adapts it to a horror setting that feels like a natural fit. The Backrooms and anomaly hunting are such a perfect pairing that it's surprising it wasn't done sooner.

Where the experience occasionally stumbles is in its repetition. The gameplay loop is intentionally minimalistic, which helps maintain tension, but players hoping for complex puzzles, deeper exploration, or extensive narrative threads may find the experience somewhat one-note. The enjoyment lives almost entirely in the act of observation. If spotting tiny environmental changes sounds thrilling, you'll be hooked. If it doesn't, no amount of liminal atmosphere will change your mind.

Fortunately, the developers have continued building on the foundation with updates that add additional challenge modes, collectible field logs, hints, and expanded anomaly hunting mechanics. These additions help extend the game's longevity beyond the initial novelty of learning its tricks.

Ultimately, BACKROOMS ANOMALY succeeds because it understands a fundamental truth about horror: the scariest thing in the room is often your own imagination. It turns the simple act of paying attention into a source of tension and transforms mundane hallways into psychological minefields. It may not revolutionise the anomaly-hunting genre, but it delivers a polished, atmospheric, and frequently unnerving take on it.

Pros

• Excellent use of Backrooms atmosphere

• Clever perception-based gameplay loop

• Builds paranoia without relying on constant jump scares

• Strong visual and audio presentation

• Additional modes and content increase replay value

Cons

• Heavily indebted to The Exit 8 formula

• Repetitive by design

• Limited narrative payoff

• Appeal depends entirely on enjoying anomaly-spotting gameplay

A tense and effective anomaly-hunting horror game that turns observation into terror. If you've ever stared at a room and wondered whether something moved when you weren't looking, this is absolutely your kind of nightmare.

XPN Rating: 3.5 out of 5 (SILVER)

BACKROOMS ANOMALY is available now!