Observe your surroundings carefully to reach "The Exit 8".
Thank you for using the underground passageway. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. There are ... of anomalies that have not been found. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation.
The Exit 8 (８番出口) is a First Person Psychological Horror Environmental Narrative Game created by KOTAKE CREATE for PC, and released on 29 November, 2023. Broadly, it is a Hidden Object Game that combines elements of I'm On Observation Duty with the liminal space horror of The Backrooms.
Set in a nondescript underground passageway, the player is tasked with reaching the eponymous "Exit 8'. There's only one problem: the tunnel has become an Unnaturally Looping Location thanks to "anomalies". To escape, players must back out of the corridor if it contains an anomaly while walking forward through a "clean" corridor. The question is whether one is perceptive enough to notice them...
Warning: Due to the nature of the game, it is best played blind. Readers should beware of gameplay spoilers, marked or unmarked.
This game contains examples of:
- Anti-Frustration Features: After you've completed the game once, the game will only pull anomalies you haven't detected yet until you've found them all, making the process of finding all of them much less tedious and frustrating.
- Apathetic Citizens: The man walking down the subway is oblivious to your plight, adding to the feeling of helplessness and isolation as you alone have to use your wits to reach Exit 8.
- Creepy Painting: Some anomalies inhabit the ads and signs on the left wall, which either grow in size, repeat, have disturbing additions, look at you, etc.
- Fade to White: The ending of a run leads the player to Exit 8, where they climb the stairs into the blinding white light, followed by sounds of the outdoors, and the credits.
- Fake-Out Fade-Out: One of the anomalies is finding the stairway to Exit 8 too early. Climbing up it will deny you the ending, sending you straight back to the beginning.
- Gotta Catch Them All: After the end of their run, players can restart the game, which adds a wall sign informing them of how many unobserved anomalies remain to be seen, implicitly challenging the player to experience them all.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: You are trapped in the subway tunnel by various anomalies, and will repeat walking down the passageway indefinitely. The only way to escape is to reach Exit 8 without passing by anything abnormal.
- Humanoid Abomination: Several anomalies resemble humans. Some are hostile, like the humanoid disguised as a wall, and the twin men, while some are not, like the woman who peeks out from behind the side door. Even the man you pass by in the passage has enough anomalies related to him to count as one.
- Mundane Horror: The game manages to get a lot of use out of a clean and tidy underpass, especially one that boxes you in.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Because the anomalies range between completely obvious to "blink and you'll miss it", and some only activate when you're halfway down the passage, the game is designed to unnerve players approaching the far end. Is it a "clean" passage? Did you miss something? How many times are you willing to check?
- Notice This: An information sign warns you not to overlook any anomalies, and turn back if you spot any. This has greater implications the whole world is affected, and people like you are trying to go about their daily routine.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Some of the anomalies are tied to the man pacing down the passage towards you, causing him to act in subtly unusual ways. This requires players to observe them.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: One of the anomalies tied to the office worker is a visual glitch that causes his head to become partially transparent.
- Personal Space Invader: Some of the anomalies rush and attack the player to reset the loops. The figure disguised as a wall, the twin men, and one variation of the male office worker charge and grab you before causing a Smash to Black.
- Poorly Lit Pareidolia: Some anomalies change the texture of an object to resemble a face. One replaces the yellow tactile tiles on the floor, while another adds a face-shaped stain on the ceiling above.
- Schmuck Bait: One anomaly is a side door that opens up into a black void. Players can walk inside to reset their loop. Another is a fake stairway exit that resembles Exit 8, but has the wrong number. Ascending it also leads to a reset.
- Shout-Out:
- Two of the anomalies are references to The Shining: a pair of twins standing side by side in the passage (albeit adult men rather than little girls), and a flood of blood red water that rushes towards you from the other side of the passage.
- One anomaly references P.T.: a very tall woman peers out at you from behind a door that is open just a crack. As in P.T., she won't approach further or harm you (at least, P.T.'s Lisa didn't do so during the scene being referenced), but in a way that just adds to the overall creepiness. It's an appropriate Homage, given that P.T. is essentially the Trope Codifier for Unnaturally Looping Location psychological horror games like this one.
- Timed Mission: The man pacing down the hallway is a subtle time limit. The loop will automatically reset once he reaches the exit number wall sign and starts checking on his phone, regardless if an anomaly is present or not.
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: To escape this subway, you have to be on the lookout for subtle anomalies and run back to the previous corridor to progress. This can descend into
Paranoia Fuel when you start doubting yourself when sometimes nothing's out of the ordinary. - Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The other man has absolutely no reaction to any of the anomalies around him. Even if the tunnel is flooding with red water up to his knees, he'll just keep casually strolling along.
All anomalies found. Thank you for using our underground passageway.
