Terrifying Backrooms Level X Game Hits PC on May 29, 2025

Believe it or not, the Backrooms began life as a 4chan thread in 2019. An anonymous user posted a photograph of an office-like space with fluorescent lights, yellow walls, and a dull, yellow carpet, accompanied by a caption describing the relentless buzz of those fluorescents, the smell of wet carpet, and an endless labyrinth of impossible-to-navigate corridors. The thread was a community-driven sensation, circulating the internet like a mosquito over a pond at sunset, and with multiple expansions and interpretations, including the short films of Kane Pixels over on YouTube, the first of which was posted in 2022.

Of course, following the short films came the games. There have been multiple Backrooms games in development since the creepypasta first hunkered down in its darkened corner of the internet, and Backrooms Level X is the newest of these offerings. After a VHS cassette containing footage of an unfortunate incident in Albuquerque, New Mexico 1986, is lost, the tape winds up in the hands of the player. Once that cassette has been placed into a VCR, the player finds themselves no-clipping through to the Backrooms, where their liminal adventure begins.

The trailer offers brief looks at draping shadows, eyes in the dark, and a few momentary snapshots at different levels. It’s exciting to speculate on which of the hundreds of levels that internet users have designed since the Backrooms’ inception will make themselves known within Backrooms Level X.

A few of the more famous spaces include The Poolrooms, which has the labyrinth take on the appearance of a variety of pools of differing depths in rooms covered in white mosaic, and Level! which introduces the player to a long corridor with scattered hospital paraphernalia scattered over the floor. For this level, the player must run without stopping as the combined entities of multiple floors chase them to the end.

Not Just a Spatial Challenge

A lot of love has clearly gone into the making of this game. While the visuals in the trailer look absolutely stunning, there is also a killer soundtrack that is properly designed to pull the player into the off-kilterness of the experience. Fear is heightened, and tension is carefully applied so that the player is practically jumping out of their skin around every corner, an ingenious device to slow the player down as they shift through levels, only giving the monsters a chance to draw closer.

Also included in the Backrooms Level X are brain-teasing puzzles designed to put even more pressure on the player and to push the explorative element of the game. Afraid of that dark corner over there? Can’t bypass that, it might hold an access code number for the door to the exit of the level…or a terrible shadow monster that will eat your face. Prevalent through the whole experience, and in keeping with that Backrooms aesthetic, is a crippling sense of loneliness and agoraphobia brought about by the off-centreness of the geometric spaces.

A24’s Coveted Movie Release?

The release of Backroom’s Level X is sure to breathe life into the story, which could pave the way for a release date for A24’s mysterious film adaptation of the creepypasta. The film was set to be directed by Kane Pixels and was announced in February 2023. Fans were expecting a 2024 release, but the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes meant unforeseen delays.

Can Backroom’s Level X fill the backroom-centric voids in our hearts as we continue to wait for a solid release date for the A24 movie? Remember, Backrooms Level X will be hitting Steam for the PC on 29th May 2025, so get those wallets ready, unless they’ve spontaneously no-clipped out of reality and are waiting for you in the Backrooms for real.