- The real world is where the monsters are.
The Backrooms 1998 is a first-person horror game by Steelkrill Studio (solo self-taught developer Ryan Portelli), the maker of Trenches. It was released into Early Access on Steam on May 25th, 2022.
Players take the role of Paul, a teen skateboarder using a VHS camcorder to record his friends skateboarding, who suddenly finds himself falling into The Backrooms. He must now navigate the strange space and hopefully find a way to escape, all while being stalked by a horrific creature.
The Backrooms 1998 contains examples of:
- Advertised Extra: The game has very little to do with the actual Backrooms "mythos", and it's used mostly as a creepy setting for the game to take place in while it tells its own story.
- Asshole Victim: The protagonist and his friends kidnapped and murdered an 11 year old boy they found playing in the woods, solely for the sake of laughs. Everything that happens to him in the Backrooms is more than richly deserved.
- It's also revealed in the credits that the "friends" received death penalties upon being caught. Considering what was mentioned above and the fact that they they outright ditched Paul after he broke his neck in a skateboarding accident, it'd be really surprising if you actually feel any sort of pity for these guys.
- Based on a True Story: The backstory events of the game, concerning the murder of a young boy named Little Timmy, are based on the murder of 11-year old Timmy King. It turns out you and your friends were the murderers.
- Chronic Evidence Retention Syndrome: Paul recorded himself and his friends kidnapping and murdering Little Timmy after finding him playing in the woods. Paul not only kept the tape, but continued to use it to record his friends skateboarding a few days later. After Paul breaks his neck while skating, the police recover the camcorder, watch the tape, and use it to put his friends on death row.
- Creepy Doll: Creepy mannequins can be found in several of the rooms in the Backrooms. This includes one with creepy long arms that it could easily walk on, and no lower body, which wouldn't be out of place as a Silent Hill enemy. Thankfully, they merely jumpscare you and aren't an actual enemy.
- Dying Dream: It turns out that your character broke his neck while skateboarding at the beginning of the game. Everything that transpires in the Backrooms is you dying on a hospital table while being haunted by your sins.
- Foreshadowing: Early on in the game, you can find a note from Little Timmy mentioning that he's met someone named "Lee or Larson or something like that" and that this person has brought him to their basement. Your character Paul calls out to his friends Liam and Drake while lost in the Backrooms. This is a big clue that he and his friends were involved in Timmy's kidnapping and murder.
- Found Footage Films: The entire game is viewed through a VHS camcorder that the protagonist is using to record what's happening to him.
- Interface Screw: Besides the frequent jumpscares, your camcorder will also occasionally glitch out for a few seconds.
- Invincible Boogeymen: The monster can't be harmed or hindered in any way by the player. Unlike Trenches, you don't even have a pistol to slow it down a little. You can only run from it or hide in a locker or under a table.
- New Work, Recycled Graphics: The Backrooms 1998 is essentially Trenches, only in the Backrooms rather than the trenches of WWI. It has the same menus, user interface, gameplay, frequent jumpscares, and even a similar behaving monster (although the Backrooms 1998 monster is blind and thus has a shorter sight range compared to the one from Trenches). Comparatively, Backrooms 1998 is less of a maze than Trenches, and the key items are in specific areas rather than randomly placed. Overall the non-linear area in which you spend most of the game playing cat-and-mouse with the monster feels more polished and better designed compared to Trenches, with more hiding spots, save points, avenues of escape, and less problem with dead ends that kill you unavoidably if the monster is chasing you.
- Roaming Enemy: The monster roams the large non-linear area where the main section of the game takes place, and will home in on any noises you make such as stepping on rubble, moving wooden boxes or even speaking into your microphone too loudly.
