10 SCARIEST Backrooms in Escape The Backrooms
Level 0.11
Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Backrooms is familiar with Level 0 and its endless hallways and yellow wallpaper. Level 0.11 or “Water Damage” completely removes that familiarity and replaces it with a decaying, abandoned version that immediately puts you in a state of unease. The broken, water damaged, and dimly lit hallways feel more claustrophobic than Level 0 and the Howler entity stalking the halls is far more aggressive. The only way to escape this level is by finding the four levels scattered throughout which are also on timers, so if you run behind, you must start all over again. The stress of the timed puzzle along with the Howler’s nonstop hunt for you severely ramps up the tension and horror and is the moment when the game truly stops holding your hand and demands you survive on your own. If you can.
Overgrowth
If you barely survived Level 0.11, Overgrowth is Water Damage on steroids. Everything within this level is trying to kill you. From the bacteria deposits that fill the air with spores to the now multiple Howlers actively hunting you at all times, Overgrowth significantly ups the stakes of not just surviving the level but also psychologically asking how far you would go to survive. In order to escape the level, you’ll need to drag other unconscious Wanderers to the Death Slides and use their bodies to dismantle the four deadly fans lest you meet the same fate from either the fans or the Bone Thief. That’s right, the Howlers aren’t the only threat in Overgrowth. The massive layout makes avoiding the many dangers more difficult and the morality cost for your survival only adds to the disturbing nature of Overgrowth.
Level Fun
Don’t let the level’s name fool you, Level Fun is anything but. The brightly lit and colorful level immediately draws you in with its sense of nostalgia and welcoming atmosphere. But this is by design. The party aesthetic hides some of the most terrifying entities in the Backrooms: The Partygoers. Level Fun is more about stealth than speed as the Partygoers are relentless once they spot you and any sound, movement or even looking at them for too long can send multiple Partygoers descending on you at once. The playful but distorted music constantly playing in the background further plays into the cheerful, nostalgia baited level, contrasting our expectations of our childhood birthday parties with some of the most downright horrifying encounters in the Backrooms. Level Fun is terrifying because it weaponizes our memories against us and uses that to hunt us more effectively.
Level 8 Cave System
The idea of the Backrooms is already scary enough but ending up on a level that is an entire underground cave system is downright nightmare fuel. The massive layout, combined with twisting pathways, collapsing bridges and the almost pitch blackness is enough to make even the most experienced spelunker nervous. Navigating the winding corridors isn’t the only danger either. Hidden within the darkness are the female deathmoths and worse, the Skin-Stealers. The deathmoths can be avoided with careful movements, but the Skin-Stealers will mimic other humans, a real nightmare during multiplayer, and once they find you, it’s a frantic chase for survival or a brutal end to your escape. Simply even navigating the tunnels can be disorienting, let alone trying to complete the levels objectives while avoiding the many natural and unnatural dangers can lead to many panicked moments of dread and a newfound fear of the dark.
Level !~! Hotel Chase
Whereas the other levels focus on careful and calculated navigation, Hotel Chase is all about sheer blood pumping adrenaline with no breathing room. From the moment you’re dropping into this level, it’s immediately off putting and unsettling. The blood red hallways are incredibly oppressive and from the moment you hit the switch, the chase is on. Along with fighting the winding identical hallways and doors randomly popping open to slow you down, you’re constantly on the run from The Clump, an amalgamation of limbs and a giant mouth waiting to devour you whole. The entire experience is sensory overload. The blaring sirens, the unexpected doors slamming open, the winding paths that can not only be disorienting but also hide deadly traps, and the constant dread of knowing The Clump is directly behind you. Hotel Chase might be one of the shorter levels but is by far the most panic inducing.
Level 7 Thalassaphobia
Even looking at this footage makes my heart drop to my stomach. Easily the most terrifying level for me, the appropriately named level Thalassaphobia is an endless ocean with no end, and no bottom. As if the feeling of being hopelessly lost in an endless ocean wasn’t bad enough, there’s something in the water with you and its size is enough to induce another phobia, Megalophobia, the fear of large things. Players need to explore the endless ocean by boat before donning a diving helmet and going under the waves to find a very specific cave to escape the level. Whereas above the water was bad enough, the near pitch-black underwater section is enough to make some players just give up entirely. The true terror of the level comes not from the constant threat of the Giga Fish, but the sheer primal hopelessness of being lost in an endless ocean.
Level 5 Terror Hotel
On the surface, Terror Hotel appears too nice and clean to be part of the Backrooms, but that’s what makes it so unsettling. Compared to many of the other levels of the Backrooms, Level 5 is the most normal until you begin exploring. Sounds of parties and guests echo from behind the walls, and the constant drain on your sanity meter means there’s “something” in the level with you that you just can’t see. Making your way further into the winding and looping hallways of empty rooms and locked doors eventually introduces a Skin-Stealer and a Hound roaming the hallways, making solving puzzles a constant exercise in escalating tension. The boiler room provides no reprieve as it is infested with female deathmoths and the dark cramped environment can become easily confusing. Level 5 perfectly builds tension and dread with its “normal” setting before feeding off that paranoia and some of the most terrifying moments of the game.
Level 188 Courtyard of Windows
Another hotel-based level, Level 188 feeds on our paranoia of isolation. The multi-storied hotel is filled with hundreds of windows making you feel like you’re constantly being watched, which as it turns out, you are. The Window Entity will move between the many windows, occasionally knocking on them and if you get too close will attack you. You never know which window it’s hiding in, the only clue being the moving curtains, causing you to constantly be on edge and scanning the windows. The windows aren’t the only threat either. Stalking the hallways is the Chaser, a giant multi-limbed entity that gives chase once it sees you and is much faster than you could ever be. Simply completing the level’s objectives rewards patience and feeds on your paranoia. The atmosphere alone is more unsettling than any of the entities hiding in the level.
Level 6 Lights Out
Just from a purely atmospheric point of view, Level 6 is unmatched by anything else in Escape the Backrooms. The entire level is in complete darkness with your flashlight only working for the first half of the level, and the rest you are in total blackness. The lack of light naturally leads to paranoia with small sounds echoing all around you and can easily lead you in circles with barely any landmarks to help guide your way. The darkness forces you to move cautiously and with no light sources it’s all too easy to imagine or hallucinate things moving in the dark. All this paranoia about something hiding in the dark proves to be true as you are stalked by The Wretch and the only thing keeping it from finding you immediately is your beeping sonar device. Level 6 is designed to build dread and paranoia and leave you feeling completely helpless, because you are.
Level 9 Darkened Suburbs
Suburban areas can already be strange with their uniformed layouts, but at night, they’re just downright unsettling. Everything in the level feels normal and familiar, but also wrong. The many abandoned homes lining the streets are uncannily realistic and the thick fog obscuring the streets only adds to the feeling of unease. And then you encounter The Neighborhood Watch. This unrealistically tall humanoid entity stalks the streets and is impossibly fast once it spots you. Hiding inside the house isn’t any safer as they contain Wretches waiting to ambush you. Level 9 has the worst sanity drain of any level of the Backrooms and exploring the streets and houses looking for terminals to escape only exacerbates it. The neighborhood is unnaturally large leading to long stretches of confusing backtracking between moments of sheer terror. Level 9 epitomizes exactly what makes the Backrooms so terrifying, taking the mundane and twisting it just enough to make it unnatural.
What level of the Backrooms do you think would be the most terrifying and difficult to survive? Share your survival strategies in the comments.
