2.5/5 ★ – FoofDeckman's review of Escape the Backrooms.

I have a weird fixation on Early Access Indie Co-Op Backrooms horror games for some reason. Out of all of the ones I've played almost none of them are particularly well done or polished, but that's sort of the charm. Escape the Backrooms in particular is a blast to play with a group of friends, which is why I kept looking forward to new updates. Escape the Backrooms was the most promising of this subgenre and after following this game for years, the 1.0 release finally arrived a few months ago and I can't help but feel disappointed by the end result. Nothing about the 1.0 Update screams "this is a full release product", it still feels incredibly broken, unpolished and borderline unfun depending on what level you're playing on. Inconsistent is the best word I can think of when describing the levels in this game. None of them are particularly scary, but some can be really fun to go through, while others end up feeling like a chore to play. I'm really glad this isn't one of those backrooms games that only uses the well known liminal spaces like the yellow office or the poolrooms, because my god I am so tired of seeing those and there are plenty of other games that have already explored those environments. Escape the Backrooms has a wide variety of levels and I appreciated how fresh it felt compared to a lot of other backrooms games, even if mechanically they're all pretty straight forward. One of my favorite levels in this game "The Suburbs" offers new ideas to this subgenre and was so much fun to play with a group of people. Unfortunately you also get levels like The Boiler Room which consists of you banging your head against the wall every time your sanity depletes and having to restart the entire thing. I'm not particularly a fan of Mazes, and the boiler room is a flat out maze, and not a very fun one. One of the things I was looking forward to with this 1.0 Update were the newly introduced endings and branching paths, but man, was that just such a disappointment. Sure they added a couple of new endings, but each and every one of them feel so anticlimactic, especially after waiting so long for it. You basically just complete a level like usual and instead of having another level load, a cutscene plays and then the game cuts to credits. It's just such a wasted opportunity and I wish the developers went in a different direction with the endings. I know a lot of people like to use the term "Friend-Slop" as of late, especially when referring to games like Lethal Company, REPO or Peak, but I see that term being more suited for games like this than any of those. Escape the Backrooms is friend-slop and you know what, that's okay. I never expected a masterpiece out of this game, but I still had a good time even if it's heavily flawed. Even though I'm not giving it a very high score I still recommend at least checking it out if you have a couple of friends to play it with as It can make for a really fun game night.