The Backrooms 1998 Review (PC)

If it’s a perpetual nightmare with grainy corridors, questionable exits, and liminal spaces, then lo and behold — it’s probably a backroom affair that you’ve mistakenly slipped into. Given the gradual rise in popularity among horror enthusiasts over the past several years, you could spot one a mile away. It’s like a fever dream: there is little to nothing about it that stands out, except the constant mirage of illogical lies, unconventional theories, and cascading textures of an unimaginable palette. It’s a vicious cycle, subjecting yourself into a tainted labyrinthine and trying to find some form of purpose. But that’s also The Backrooms 1998, in a nutshell, and it couldn’t care less if you’re cold, alone, or afraid. It matters only that you’re there — aimlessly roaming in a desperate effort to unlock its inner secrets whilst it simultaneously attempts to fill your head with doubt and inexplicable fear.

The Backrooms 1998 is, in a true sense of the word, outlandish. It’s an otherworldly ordeal—a recurring dream of sleep-paralysis demons and unfathomable creations combined. It holds little to no purpose; it relinquishes its meaning in exchange for a mythical promise of salvation that idles somewhere—anywhere behind the myriad of rabbit holes in its tainted world. Again, this is, regrettably, a traditional backroom: an endless network of bottomless pits that mean nothing to the naked eye. But there’s more to this. Oh yes, The Backrooms 1998 bears an additional cross, thus making it more than your wild romp through the shadow realm. The question is, are its double-edged crosses worth wearing? Let’s talk about it.

Into the Back

The Backrooms 1998 is a found footage first-person survival horror, and so, naturally, it has some god-awful visuals of its own. No, this isn’t the sort of show that will be celebrated in future years for its graphical advancements; if anything, such items will soon be forgotten and stapled to the centerfold of a throwaway back catalog. But that’s not what’s important here; it’s the way the world presents itself in a grim, macabre, and often disoriented manner. It looks shoddy, but that’s sort of the point: it voluntarily bathes in its misguided presentation, perhaps to highlight the importance of being a disgruntled pawn in a threatening situation with all cards stacked firmly against you. There are no guidelines here, nor any fallen angels to carefully nudge you towards the next safe haven. It’s you, your thoughts, and a seemingly endless network of monster-infested corridors. Lucky you.

The purpose (if that’s what you want to call it) of The Backrooms 1998 is to navigate a series of dimly lit biomes—a collection of areas of murky yellows and grainy charcoals—and locate an exit. The story, if we can call it that, doesn’t contribute a great deal to this phishing expedition into the rooms themselves. In a nutshell, the story sees a teen, presumably a young teen hell-bent on proving themselves, lost in the inner network of the titular backrooms. That’s about as much as it is willing to shell out, and so, an award-winning plot it most certainly is not. But again, The Backrooms aren’t exactly known for their bottomless lore, so The Backrooms 1998 isn’t exactly an irregular tale. It just, I don’t know, fits with its chosen kin. Will you remember the protagonist? No. But then, I don’t think it expects you to, either.

A Glint of SCP

The Backrooms 1998 is all about its monsters—the SCP-like experiments who flesh out the inner crags and crevices of the world. From its slender dolls to its not-so-static mannequins, the backrooms here have a memorable selection of nail-biting encounters with their respective gatekeepers. And there are jump scares—pulsating tidbits that provide enough of a shock to the system to keep you high on your toes for hours on end. But even this is a bit of a double-edged sword, as the Backrooms aren’t historically known for being littered with consecutive jump scares; on the contrary, they’re known for their ability to establish tension and a sense of uncertainty in their confined spaces. And while all of these things do feature in The Backrooms 1998, at no point would I say that it prioritizes ambiance over jump scares.

The found footage style is a welcome addition to this line of play, I’ll say that much. The nineties weren’t known for their cutting-edge innovational cameras, so the overall graininess and lack of crisp lighting fit the aesthetic well here. The sound, too, is intentionally lacking in quality — but that’s sort of the point; it plays on the time period to imitate a particular effect. Of course, you could just argue that it looks and acts like a poor indie horror, but with The Backrooms, you can sort of get away with it and nobody dares to bat an eyelid. Nevertheless, for what it does here, it does it all by the book, which is commendable, at least. Is it a true representation of the original backrooms? Eh, that’s debatable, though it does make for a convincing horror — so that’s something.

The Worst Self-Guided Tour Ever

There isn’t a huge amount of gameplay to dismantle here, as it’s more or less the case of walking, running, or hiding from one of several rabid pursuers to break the line of sight every once in a blue moon. There aren’t any puzzles to solve, either, minus perhaps the fact that you begin your journey up crap creek without a paddle and without any major indication of where you’re heading. But, thanks to the game’s graffiti—a beacon system that allows you to follow important points of interest—getting lost in The Backrooms 1998 isn’t exactly a common occurrence. In other words, if you play your cards right and pay close attention to your surroundings, then it becomes nigh impossible to lose track of your objectives. And that’s, you know, a bit of a cop-out — but at least it makes an attempt to usher you towards the appropriate conclusion.

Verdict

The Backrooms 1998 is a disturbing yet woefully underrated take on the backroom scene. To say that it does things differently is an unreliable statement; it more or less does the same things in an almost identical fashion as its peers — and that’s why it works. There’s a reason why backrooms have become so universally accepted in the modern world; minimal, yet as equally functional and bursting at the seams with wall-to-wall unadulterated horror, they just work without the need to adopt pretentious rules or convoluted ideas. And The Backrooms 1998 just goes to show that even the flattest imitations can still bring about an excellent atmosphere and fill it with a lot of memorable moments.

If it’s a well-orchestrated love letter to The Backrooms that you’re itching for, then there’s every good reason for you to spend a few hours traipsing through the hollow quarters of this nineties fever dream. It’s somber, secluded, and so, so unapologetically scary—three things that ought to keep you second-guessing as you gradually knuckle through its tainted waters and peel back the layers of its inner sanctum. If that’s the sort of situation you wouldn’t mind subjecting yourself to this coming weekend, then you’d be right to dial it back to 1998.