The Backrooms 1998

The Backrooms 1998 is a first-person found-footage psychological survival horror game about a young teen who accidentally falls into the Backrooms in 1998. You explore its rooms, search for clues and supplies, complete objectives and try to escape while an enemy hunts you. The rooms, hallways and areas can look familiar and change with your sanity, and you are never alone.

Explore and escape

You choose which paths to take as you search for clues that explain how you became trapped. Finding items can unlock shortcuts to other rooms. The game’s objectives focus on collecting clues and supplies to help you survive and find a way out.

Stay quiet and hide

The enemy can hear your footsteps, voice, breathing and screams through your microphone. Walking on glass or rubbish, moving crates and knocking over objects can also make noise, while running uses stamina and does not let you outrun an enemy that never tires. You can crouch, move carefully, hold your breath when danger is near, and close doors behind you to slow enemies or hide.

Lockers, furniture, spaces under tables and crawl spaces offer places to hide; crawl spaces can also provide shortcuts. You can throw objects to cause a distraction, and peek around corners before moving on. Some things in the shadows may not be shadows, and what you perceive can be affected by your sanity.

Supplies and survival

You search rooms for items to stay alive and manage your inventory, combining items and findable craftables to make more powerful items. A spray gun lets you mark paths and locations so you can track where you have been and which routes may be safe. You can also find a flashlight, whose batteries need managing, medicine to maintain your sanity, syringes to heal injuries and crowbars to open barricaded doors.

Objectives and saving

You can save only a limited number of times in a safe room near a VHS. If you lose after reaching the save limit, you are permanently stuck in the Backrooms. The game also presents its objectives as a hardcore challenge: find clues and the necessary tools while trying to avoid the enemy.