Backrooms Level X - Mini Review - Xbox

Backrooms Level X on Xbox is a short, lo-fi horror experience that leans heavily on liminal spaces, disorientation, and the uncanny, but it doesn’t always turn those ideas into something satisfying.

The game drops you into a series of stark, empty environments: fluorescent-lit corridors, abandoned office spaces, industrial rooms, and surreal transitional zones. There are moments where the atmosphere clicks with things like a sudden shift in lighting, a long hallway that feels wrong, a space that seems to breathe and those glimpses capture the eerie charm the Backrooms concept promises.

But the world often feels more like a collection of disconnected ideas than a cohesive nightmare. You move from one area to the next quickly, and the game rarely lingers long enough to build dread.

Gameplay is extremely minimal. You’ll:

• Wander through maze-like rooms

• Avoid shadowy entities that kill on contact

• Press switches or collect objects to progress

These mechanics add a bit of structure, but they’re very light. The whole experience is brief (easily under an hour) and once you’ve seen the handful of mechanics, there’s not much left to discover. Visuals are intentionally lo-fi, but the simplicity can make the environments feel repetitive rather than uncanny.

Pros

• Simple, accessible controls that make it easy to jump in

• Occasional striking visuals that capture the uncanny Backrooms vibe

• Short runtime works if you’re looking for a quick, bite-sized horror experience

• A few tense encounters that briefly deliver the dread the concept promises

Cons

• Very short overall, with little replay value

• Inconsistent pacing, with some areas feeling rushed or underdeveloped

• Audio design leans on loud stingers, which can feel cheap rather than atmospheric

• Environments often feel disconnected, more like a series of ideas than a cohesive descent

• Lo-fi presentation sometimes reads as unfinished instead of intentionally retro

If you enjoy short, experimental first-person experiences, you might find some charm in its weirdness. But its brief runtime, shallow mechanics, and uneven presentation make it feel more like a rough concept than a fully developed descent into the Backrooms. XPN Rating: 2.5 out of 5 (SILVER)

You can also check out what XPN's own Ima Gh0stbuster thought of the game in his video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ8hHaciS9o