Our picks, beyond the numbers
5 games like Escape the Backrooms we would recommend for different reasons
Escape the Backrooms works because it understands that empty, fluorescent-lit rooms are scarier with company — the dread of staying quiet together while something listens is a very different feeling from facing it alone. Finding games like it means deciding whether you want more of that exact liminal-space premise, or the same tension wearing a different setting.
A couple of these follow the Backrooms creepypasta almost exactly; others borrow the formula's core idea — a team, a threat, a reason to stay calm — and send it somewhere new. Here's where we'd send a fan of Escape the Backrooms next.
Backrooms: Escape Together
For the closest match to the exact premise
Backrooms: Escape Together works from the exact same creepypasta premise, descending from the yellow halls of Level 0 into deeper levels while scavenging to survive — about as direct a match for Escape the Backrooms' core idea as you'll find, with online co-op for up to six.
We'd call this the first stop for anyone who simply wants more Backrooms, full stop — the liminal architecture, the sense of something always just out of sight, and the same instinct to stick close to your group.
It's still in Early Access, with roughly 20 to 30 levels planned at full release, so expect less content and more rough edges than the finished version of Escape the Backrooms. Go in knowing it's a work in progress, not a finished rival.
Lethal Company
For turning the dread into a job
Lethal Company sends a crew of up to four onto abandoned industrial moons to scan and sell scrap for the Company's profit quota, with monsters that grow more dangerous after dark and a radar terminal that lets one teammate guide the others from relative safety.
We think it's a fantastic next stop if what you loved about Escape the Backrooms was the specific feeling of a shared objective under pressure — here that pressure comes with an actual job attached, and a clock that punishes greed.
It's been in Early Access since October 2023, with the developer still adding creatures and refining balance, and its moon-hopping structure replaces Escape the Backrooms' level-by-level descent entirely. Choose it for the job-under-threat tension, not for anything resembling the Backrooms itself.
In Silence
For a sharper, more adversarial edge
In Silence turns the formula into something closer to a hunt: one player controls a nearly blind monster hunting by sound while the others scramble to repair a car and escape, giving the same dread a more adversarial shape.
We'd recommend it to a group that wants the tension to come from each other's choices as much as the environment — someone has to play the monster, and that changes the whole social dynamic of a session compared to Escape the Backrooms' shared exploration.
It isn't set in the Backrooms at all, and the asymmetric one-monster-versus-survivors structure is a genuinely different shape of horror. Pick this for the hunt, not for liminal-space wandering.
The Blackout Club
For a mystery instead of a maze
The Blackout Club pairs the same co-op tension with a genuine mystery: a group of teens investigating sleepwalking townsfolk and an unseen threat you can only sense with your eyes closed, with drop-in, drop-out co-op for up to four.
We like it for players who want a story to chase alongside the dread — piecing together what's happening to your suburban town gives each session a purpose beyond simply surviving to the exit.
Its suburban conspiracy setting is a world away from the Backrooms' liminal architecture, and the eyes-closed sensing mechanic has no real equivalent in Escape the Backrooms. Choose this for the mystery, not for more empty hallways.
Forewarned
For scavenging with a curse attached
Forewarned moves the same scavenge-and-survive loop into cursed Egyptian tombs, where up to four players collect treasure and lore while trying not to wake the mummies guarding it — close enough to Escape the Backrooms' formula that reviewers have noted its own twists on it.
We'd point an Escape the Backrooms fan here for the treasure-hunting layer on top of the usual tension — there's a reason to push forward beyond simply finding the exit, and that changes the pacing of a session considerably.
Its ancient-tomb setting and ritual-banishing mechanic give it a very different flavor from the Backrooms' sterile, featureless levels, and dying can turn you into a servant of the Mejai working against your old team. Pick this for the curse mechanic, not for a liminal-space substitute.
