Web Original / The Backrooms

The first picture ever taken of Level 0.

"If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in.

God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you…"

— 4chan

The Backrooms is an internet meme, Creepypasta and quasi-Alternate Reality Game based upon the eponymous Eldritch Location, an infinite series of rooms decorated in mono-yellow wallpaper and moist carpet, lit by fluorescent lights, supposedly accessed when one "noclips"^note A videogame Cheat Code in which the player passes through otherwise impenetrable objects, such as walls or the floor out of reality. Currently, a KnowYourMeme article exists documenting the phenomenon and two separate subreddits as well as three different wikis^note Liminal Archives doesn't exclusively deal with the Backrooms and will delve into other things at times. have been made to expand upon the lore.

The creepypasta was created in 2019 by an anonymous user on 4chan, when posting the aforementioned quote in response to a slightly tilted photo of an empty yellow-colored hallway in a discussion about unsettling images. The concept of one suddenly getting stranded alone in an abandoned maze beyond reality and the eerieness of the image — depicting a familiar environment like an office, but without any people or furniture — led many internet users in the following years to delve into the story and expand the original premise in social media, such as adding antagonistic supernatural entities and different landscapes trapped travelers could face, sometimes called "levels". The latter often similarly plays with the juxtaposition of nostalgic, recognizable, and oft-crowded places depicted as abandoned, claustrophobic, surreal and dream-like instead, using the concept of "liminal places" popularized by The Backrooms.

On January 7th, 2022, interest in the Backrooms lore was bolstered when a YouTube user named Kane "Pixels" Parsons released a viral found footage short about a camera operator who finds themself trapped in Level 0, unknowingly stalked by wire-like entities who eventually decide to give chase. The video was given a VHS filter to disguise the CGI nature of the project, and many viewers were impressed with the lifelike camera movements that made the video feel real. The video was later followed by others which turned it into a full Analog Horror series, which is mostly disconnected from the previous Backrooms-themed wikis. The page dedicated to this series can be found here.

Another notable video — predating the Kane Pixels series (October 26, 2019) — is Into The Backrooms by YouTube user Evan Royalty. It also has its own separate continuity from the general Backrooms lore and tells the story of LAPD Police Officer James Richmond responding to a welfare check request from a Timothy Park whose wife Claire has gone missing. Rich discovers an open door at the Park residence and requests backup, a Knox answering the call. Long-story-short, Rich falls through a glitch into Level 0 and suffers great emotional trauma from his experience of being isolated and hunted by an entity. The video was developed through modifications to Grand Theft Auto V.

A video game based on the lore of the Backrooms, Subliminal, is slated for release in 2024.

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The Backrooms In General

• Adorable Abomination: Blanche of level 906 appears to be a very pretty, polite and kind young lady who is extremely helpful to any humans that come across her. That said, it's noted that she sometimes tends to bend, stretch, or deform in ways not possible for humans. It turns out that she's really a mind-shattering but benevolent Eldritch Abomination who uses this form to interact with people.
• All the Worlds Are a Stage: Level 38 is an amalgamation of all levels from numbers 0 to 37, having all of their effects. Some documented include the darkness of Level 6, the intense mould of Level 28, the decay in the outer sections of Level 33, the inability to be photographed of Level 12, the pipes of Level 2, the great Wi-Fi of Level 3, the gravitational effects of Level 7, the high number of floors of Level 13, the reminiscence of childhood experiences of Level 18, the non-Euclidean layout of Level 26, the tainted food of Level 36, the Level 11 effect, the “paradise” of Level 14, the complete structural shifts of Level 16, the distorted mountains and settlements of Level 29, the fake landscape of Level 30, the skeletons of Level 32 and the colour changing sky of Level 37.
• Antidote Effect: Almond Water and its variants are considered very valuable as they restore sanity and health and are vital to carry as supplies. This is especially true for levels that drain sanity slowly enough for the Almond Water to out-pace the drain.
• Apocalyptic Log: All accounts of the Backrooms take on this nature, with anyone stuck there destined to either starve to death or be hunted down by one of the Eldritch Abominations.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Nostalgi Gaius, an unfathomably powerful and malignant entity resembling a 200 meter tall Roman Goddess statue holding a glowing weapon in her hand. She preys on nostalgic and tragic memories and will all too happily convince visitors to her lair, Level 404, that they are "home" and "in heaven" with her, while feeding off of them and causing them eternal suffering for "leaving" her.
• Arch-Enemy: Entity 140 (Blanche) and Entity Null (Gaius) used to be "sisters", but now that Null is playing God with the entirety of the Backrooms and the poor souls lost within them, Blanche has made it clear that she will do everything she can to curb her power.
• Bag of Holding: The item known as a "pocket" is a small broach that contains its own pocket dimension used for storing items
• Berserk Button: Blanche serves as one for Gaius, who views her as an interloping parasite who must be purged.
• Beware the Nice Ones: While there are some friendly entities to encounter, they will turn to aggression if a wanderer attacks them.
• BFG: The Cauldron; it requires multiple people to maneuvers around, but has enough fire crystal to kill even the nigh-invulverable Sentinel. However, the required amount of processed fire crystal and the cannon only holding one shot gives the prototype cannon elements of being Awesome, but Impractical.
• Big Good: Blanche of level 906 can be seen as this. She's the good counterpart of Gaius and is generally a soft-spoken, friendly librarian. Provided you maintain your best behavior in her archive and don't attack her, that is.
• Blatant Lies: DO NOT trust any message ending with a "=)"! They are written by Partygoers who are trying to trick wanderers into thinking they are friendly. The notes may also lead you to their domain — Level "Fun =)" — which is a nightmarish (but cheery) trap.
• Breather Level: An in-universe example with Level 37, also known as either "the Poolrooms" or "Sublimity". Here, there are no entities, only miles of artificial canals, pools, and other water features in an environment reminiscent of an indoor water park, complete with varying levels of lights, a colour-changing sky visible through windows, and tiled walls and floors. However, travellers must note that the water in Level 37 is not chlorinated, and the darker areas of the level have stagnant water which the bacteria responsible for the highly dangerous Hydrolitis Plague have colonised.
• Brown Note: The experience of Level 0 is suggested to be like this due to the dilapidated yellowing of the surfaces, the maddening fluorescent light fixtures buzzing loudly, the glaring lights themselves, and the maze-like randomly-arranged corridors that have no rhyme or reason.
• Brutal Bonus Level: There are multiple:
  • Level ! (Run For Your Life) has you running a gauntlet down crimson-lit halls with alarms blaring, entities hot on your tail, and variably 20 km of hallway with you spawning at the halfway point. Fortunately, there are pickups to boost your stamina and give you a fighting chance to run for the exit at the end. Not only can you warp here at random just by changing levels (slim chance), but there are also consistent ways to get here if the wanderer so desires.
  • Level ! also has an even worse sublevel called Level !-! (Hotel Chase). It is an even longer hallway with even more entities chasing you (including undocumented ones), and even more obstacles to avoid such as puddles of liquid pain and carpets with venomous fluid (so you better be wearing shoes, or else a Fate Worse than Death awaits you). Unlike the main level, though, you will run into a blue hallway every few miles. These blue hallways are rest areas where wanderers can restock on their sanity, almond water, energy bars, as well as interact with colonies and outposts. You are also given the option to exit the level and be sent to a random level. However, should you choose to continue all the way to the end (it is unknown how long the level actually is), you will reach a staircase leading to The Promised Land which is rumored to have an exit leading back to reality.
  • Level "Rush" is essentially the Backroom's take on a Boss Rush arena, with the final boss being absurdly difficult to neutralize.
  • Level "Fun =)" is a twist on this idea as it's relatively easy to find due to the advertising it gets by Partygoers, but it's a ploy to snare wanderers and escaping is a major undertaking.
• Can't Move While Being Watched: This is how you deal with the Smilers. Do not turn your back to them as you retreat, or shine a light at them from your person, whatever you do! Strongly throwing a light source away from yourself helps distract them too.
• Cats Are Magic: Samantha is a cat who can not only speak in three different languages, but also wields several psychic abilities.
• Cats Are Superior: Berry is a cat who has an entire following and can seemingly give visions of reality.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: The Smilers have this as their only visible feature besides the darkness they wear as a body.
• Cosmic Horror Story: The original meme and all examples of it describe a particularly bleak scenario of being stuck in an infinite Eldritch Location with no hope of escape, being hunted by strange monsters that wander the area.
  • The expanded lore takes it even further as more Levels and Entities are invented. While not all of them have death traps, lethal hazards, or a choice between a feral animal or Blue-and-Orange Morality to explain why they want you dead, but it hammers it further than the original meme that you are going to die here. The only questions that matter being how you die, what kills you, and how long you last. And as far as anyone in the normal world is concerned, you just vanished without a trace, never to be seen again.
• Creepy Child: Child Facelings are almost always hostile and will often attack in small groups with sharp objects such as knives. Even when they aren't out for blood they still like playing nasty pranks and scaring people.
• Cruel and Unusual Death:
  • The Dentists kill off their victims by ripping out their teeth and gums and then either strangling them, stabbing them, or just using blunt force.
  • Like their name suggests, Bone Thieves kill victims who meet their gaze by vanishing every bone in their body, before proceeding to eat the boneless corpse.
  • Skin-Givers kill victims they encounter by placing extra layers of skin on them until they pass out from heat exhaustion, then tearing off the extra layers of skin and eating the victim's flesh.
  • Mother appears to trap people in Level 1.5 and separate their souls and flesh, which is described as extremely painful.
  • Tiletraps will attack "losers" of the Tile Game, injecting them with enzymes which paralyse them but keep them conscious, at which point more Tiletraps will swarm and burrow through the victim; they will also try their best to keep their victim alive throughout the process.
  • Inhaling Entity 169's spores will eventually cause the victim's entire respiratory system to explode out from their body, often rupturing their ribcage in the process.
  • The Birds kill their victims by luring them into their colony and eating away at their skin until all that remains is a skeleton.
  • Carnivorous Balloons use their knot to paralyze their victims and open the sphincter of the knot to consume them. The digestion process is carried out with the use of gaseous ammonia, which is highly corrosive and digests the victim in a similar way to hydrochloric acid in the human stomach. The process can last a few days, and the victim will be conscious and able to feel pain until they eventually die from blood loss, dehydration, or buildup of toxic substances in their body.
  • The Hydrolitis Plague's symptoms include discoloration of skin, high fevers, internal bleeding, and necrosis, eventually resulting in death.
  • Those who get caught in the light of a Watcher will be Reduced to Dust and left alive for 5 hours afterwards. The page describes this process as agonising.
  • Falling into The Void is a more subtle take, as you're trapped in nothingness until you expire. Depending on who you ask, The Void will sustain your life, granting you a cruel twist on immortality.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: A group known as the Partypoopers declared war against the Partygoers. The Partygoers defeated the Partypoopers and rendered them extinct.
• Dead-End Room:
  • The Blackout is an enigmatic level and is a perfect mirror to The Whiteout. It can be accessed through going deep enough into The Whiteout to find a grey door. The moment you enter, the door will shut and lock itself behind you. There is no known exit, so you're doomed to travel through an abandoned house with cobwebs, hostile entities, and a bride following you until you inevitably die. This can all be avoided by simply not entering the grey door.
  • Level REDACTED, also known as "The Downroons", is practically another set of Backrooms, with various locations known as "Sub-Levels". The Level can only be accessed by quantum tunneling in The Void, and the moment you enter, you will be doomed to wander the level for the rest of your life.
  • Being the 8-bit integer limit, Level 256, also known as "Demoscene', is an abandoned technological demonstration and exhibition center. The level contains terminals which display static, video games, or recordings of the viewer. There is also a "sky", which in the 4th and final document isn't actually a sky. It can be accessed by being unlucky enough to no-clip through Level 4, and similarly to The Blackout, there is no known exit. This means that you are doomed to wander Level 256 until death.
  • The Stop Sign is a Brutal Bonus Level that consists of a simple infinite field. What makes this unique, however, is that there is an entity resembling a single stop sign, which functions as the main gimmick of the level. When the stop sign gets you, it will suck your soul out and add it to the M.E.G. database. If you run away for it for long enough, it will freeze you in time and cut your head in half. Since there is no known exit, you will inevitably die a few moments after entering The Stop Sign, and it's also unknown how to enter. It is also a case of Blatant Lies due to the article being vandalized by a wanderer named Gary's dead friends to make the Level seem safe.
  • Level Fun + is an even more dangerous sublevel of Level Fun that can only be accessed by surviving long enough on the main level. The wanderer will be taken there by the Party Creators, which are tall and powerful Purple Partygoers treated as gods by the main Partygoers and provide them with all the party supplies used to lure victims. The level resembles a fun house with bouncy castles, ball pits, and trampolines resembling a wanderer's childhood memory. This is all a trap so that the Patty Creators can kill their prey. This is a somewhat downplayed example as it is technically possible to escape Level Fun + by defeating a Party Creator. But because of the Party Creator's immense strength, no one has succeeded in doing so.
• Demonic Possession: Gaius is capable of inflicting this on whomever she deems her new vessel, eventually overriding their personality.
• Depending on the Writer: Due to its nature as an internet creepypasta, the interpretations of the Backrooms differ wildly depending on who's writing it. Not just the content of levels, but also entities and objects.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Entity 140, "Blanche", is a very friendly and polite librarian lady whose true form is a mind-shattering Eldritch Abomination that tries their best to keep a more comprehensible form. The person interviewing her even lampshades this.
  Dawn: So… let me see if I got this right. You are some sort of being far beyond my comprehension, of immense power, and you're using it to have chats over tea?
• Don't Go Into the Woods: Some of the more dangerous and creepy locations in The Backrooms take on the form of vast forests. This includes Level 14: Paradise, Level 23: The Petrified Garden, Level 32: Forest of the Skeleton Queen, and Level 47: The Adderwood. There are also a few inversions of this trope, such as the Crimson Forest and Level 39: Enchanted Forest which are both relatively safe and pleasant compared to the other levels.
• Eldritch Abomination: A number of them supposedly populate the Backrooms. There are a number of friendly or at least benign abominations, but those are vastly outnumbered.
• Eldritch Location: The Backrooms themselves, lying outside of reality, being infinite in scale, and being inescapable, certainly qualify. Many "levels" turn this up to 14. The reward for most eldritch has to go to level 9223372036854775807, "True Final Level." In certain continuities, there is a bottom level to the Backrooms, but you shouldn't try to reach it because it is incomprehensible to the human mind. According to some, this level is a void made of pure glitches.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Partygoers use fake birthday rooms to lure in victims to murder or convert into more Partygoers. But if it really is someone's birthday, the Partygoers will leave them alone. They'll turn hostile again the second the birthday is over, though.
  • Snatcher Weeds have no problem with harming adults, but utterly refuse to harm children.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Liquid Pain to Almond Water. They taste similar, are packaged in similarly shaped bottles, and are both found in vending machines. However, Liquid Pain is a very dark red color with a gelatinous consistency as opposed to the clear and smooth Almond Water. While consuming Almond Water helps with curing potentially fatal wounds and keeping sanity, consuming Liquid Pain will weaken the consumer through a slow and painful process until they go limp and are unable to move, yet they somehow still live through this process.
  • Gaius is the Evil Counterpart of Blanche. Whereas the latter is protective of anyone she comes across, the former wishes to manipulate their emotions and past memories to prey on them and grow stronger.
  • Level 4Four of Th3 Sh4dy Gr3y to Level 11, as many refer to it as "Level 11 but dark." Much like Level 11, Level 4Four is a large city with a similar design, and often have buildings that glitch and defy the laws of physics (like floating, appearing upside down, or clipping into each other). However, Level 11 is a colorful city where it is Endless Daytime, and is safe due to a general lack of entities. The entities that do appear (mainly Facelings and Hounds) are under "The Level 11 Effect" and therefore are passive and will not attack wanderers. Level 4Four is under the same Deliberately Monochrome palette as the rest of Th3 Sh4dy Gr3y, and it is Always Night. Entities are everywhere on this level and they are always hostile. Skyscrapers are locked, but can easily be broken into. This is not recommended as they are filled with entities like Smilers and Skin Stealers. The streets are filled with Facelings who will mug wanderers out of their belongings, and The Mangled, who are always roaming the streets looking for someone to stomp on. If that wasn't bad enough, the level hosts severe weather conditions such as extreme temperatures or natural disasters. Level 4Four is Level 11 if it were just as dangerous as some of the other worst levels in the Backrooms rather than the safe haven it currently is.
• Evil Counterpart Race: Two Inversions.
  • The Partypoopers were a Good Counterpart Race to the Partygoers. Unlike Partygoers, who would try to trick humans to lure them into Level "Fun =)" to either eat or assimilate them, Partypoopers were honest peace-loving entities who would lead wanderers into their base, "The Boredom Room," for refuge. They were normally passive, but if you tried to attack them, they would sacrifice you to the Partygoers. Sadly, they were all killed off following the end of the Fun War, and the Partygoers reigned supreme.
  • The Frowners are to the Smilers what Partypoopers were to the Partygoers. As their name implies, they have a constant frown on their face, but are genuinely friendly to wanderers. They also are not afraid of the light compared to their smiling counterparts, revealing themselves to be humanoid creatures standing at 6-10 feet with long sharp horns protruding from their head and long claws. While they are normally docile, they will get aggressive in the presence of Smilers, their natural enemy, and will also sacrifice you to the Smilers if you attack them. Much like the Fun War, Smilers and Frowners got into their own war called the Glowing Face War. The Smilers unfortunately won and took over the Frowners' home level. Thankfully, the Frowners didn't go extinct like the Partypoopers did, but they're still endangered. They eventually got themselves a new level, where they'd help Backrooms wanderers seeking refuge. The Frowners are slowly but surely repopulating. What helps is that they can convert Smilers into more Frowners by gouging out their eyes with their claws.
• Evil Is Petty: Entity Null (Gaius) wants all of humanity to suffer for eternity as penance for having left her alone long ago— except nobody knows what she's talking about.
• Evil Versus Evil: The Smilers and Rattlers are known to absolutely hate each other. The rivalry started when a Smiler killed a Rattler's victim. This infuriated the Rattler and it actually managed to drive the Smiler insane. The Smiler underwent drastic changes, it began frowning and its face began glitching and it would constantly try to get away from the Rattler. The other Smilers ended up attacking and actually killing the Rattler. The Rattlers, being smart, made Smilers public enemy number 1 to their kind. Ever since then, the two would go out of their way to attack each other over wanderers.
• Expy: Level 5 is a haunted Hell Hotel with long endless walkways and gaudy interior design not unlike the Overlook.
• Face–Monster Turn:
  • Wanderers who spend too long without eating, drinking, or sleeping will lose their sanity and turn into Wretches.
  • Certain entities, such as Partygoers, can transform wanderers into more of their kind just by touching them.
• Fate Worse than Death: Those who consume Liquid Pain will fall victim to one of these, starting off with a minor swelling or fever on their left leg, then following on to a sudden pain stab to the stomach, a mild 10 hour long headache, pus leaking from the legs and head, small fractures to the skull and violent swelling of the head, internal bleeding from the legs with muscles breaking and scratching open, and ending with the explosion of stomach and eyeballs, organs busting open, and the victim no longer being able to use their limbs. They're kept alive and conscious through all of this, by the way, and somehow survive afterwards.
• Faux Affably Evil:
  • Gaius' soothing words make her seem like an absolute sweetheart... however, her absolute disgust at Blanche's existence and insults levied at her, along with her desire to see all of humanity suffer for eternity to further empower her, land her firmly in this category.
  • The Beast of Level 5 is not openly aggressive and speaks to wanderers in a polite demeanor. But don't be fooled! This entity only shows up to wanderers who are at the brink of losing their sanity, and wants to psychologically break them. Do not accept any deal of his!
• Foil: Blanche is a kind and polite woman with a human appearance who uses her powers as an incomprehensible Eldritch Abomination to help the innocent and views wanderers as new guests or friends. Nostalgi Gaius is a malevolent creature of the highest caliber who distorts and shatters reality around her, takes everything established about the Backrooms and cranks it up to eleven, assumes the form of a 200 meter high Roman Goddess statue with a glowing pink weapon and brutally hijacks a researcher's body via Demonic Possession and Split-Personality Takeover, all so she can expand her reach and prey on the memories of humanity for all eternity.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: The aptly named Format Screws are pages which subvert the typical page format. Some great examples include Entity 118, which appears as a discussion towards the deletion of a page about a disease which turns people's insides into leaves, Entity 53, which appears to be a sort of tale involving the reader reading the actual page, most of the Spookycon 2021 entities, Level Fun and Level 404, which both try to make them appear much more inviting than they actually are, the Conductor, which takes the form of a Q&A with the titular entity, and Nostalgi Gaius, who outright rewrites the text onscreen to convince people to "come home to heaven."
• Foul Ball Pit: The Pits in Level 283 are ball pits that are seemingly endless in all directions (including down). The balls act like quicksand so you sink in the ball pits when you try to move. If you sink far enough into the ball pit, you will be crushed under the weight of the balls.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You:
  • A few pages on entities outright have the pages frequently editing their own pages to make them seem better, such as the Partygoers and the Coders.
  • Exaggerated on the website's pages where Level 404 or Nostalgi Gaius are featured in that she actively rewrites the text onscreen to convince people to "come home" to "heaven" and that "we miss you."
• Friend to All Children: Lotka treats every child it finds kindly no matter what, occasionally even dipping into overprotective territory.
• God Is Evil: One researcher believes that Nostalgi Gaius is the God of everything— and she wants them all dead.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The stories that feature Gaius heavily imply that she is this, being an unfathomable "God" who wants all visitors throughout the entirety of the Backrooms dead and trapped with her for eternity, their suffering serving as nourishment.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Level 611 has an entity called The Sentinel who constantly closes in on the position of anyone who warps here. There is no known way to neutralize them besides obscene firepower, so your best bet is to take the first no-clip exit available because you may never find another one in time. Logs have also stated that there are multiple Sentinels.
• Hub Level: The Backrooms has one in the form of the aptly-named "The Hub" which resembles a concrete tunnel with doors on either side. These doors lead to either levels 0, 1, 2, -1, 4 or Fun =).
• Humanoid Abomination:
  • Gaius is 200 meters tall and preys on humans for sustenance and nourishment, wanting them all to suffer for "leaving her behind." She is so powerful and malignant that even the gods would turn away from her and scream.
  • Blanche is a friendly young lady, but it's reported that she's capable of bending, stretching or deforming in ways not humanly possible. This is because she is actually an incomprehensible but benevolent Eldritch Abomination in human form.
• Killer Rabbit: Entity 169 is a species of white, ball-shaped fungus◊ that sports a pair of black beady eye-like spots and displays "happiness" at most things. Inhaling the spores they emit will cause a human to eventually cough their entire respiratory system out as their ribcage explodes.
• King Mook: The Party Hosts are this to the Partygoers, even if the former doesn't look much like the latter.
• Luck-Based Mission: Based on Instakill Mook above, dealing with Entities usually boils down to this, even when there's room for skill application. Fighting them is out as they're either too powerful to defeat or an ammo sponge when there's precious few for everyone, some are capable of detecting your presence before you even notice you're not alone, others still are so good at hiding that by the time you notice them, it's already too late.
• Magic Librarian: Level 906, the Cygnus Archive is a Magical Library run by Entity 140, "Blanche." She's a pleasant lady with telepathic and telekinetic abilities who has control over the library and is in actuality a mind-shattering but benevolent Eldritch Abomination taking on a human form.
• Meaningful Name: The entities, and very much so. Take the 16th entity, spider-like creatures that essentially cause people to fall into a coma, called "Nguithr'xurhs" for example. Eventually gets Lampshaded, as their wiki entry states that the name was kept that way as a reminder of how powerful the sedation effect can get.
• Minus World:
  • The existence of minus worlds have been noted. It is supposedly possible to enter Level -1 by no-clipping through a wall in Level 0, much like how minus worlds are reached through glitches.
  • Especially as originally described, the entire Backrooms can be interpreted as minus world(s) for the whole of reality.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: An incredibly dangerous item in the Backrooms which gives people Fates Worse than Death if they drink it is named Liquid Pain, doesn't seem too pleasant of a name.
• New Weird: The entire premise is a New Weird take on the Ascended Glitch, the Backrooms are an Eldritch Location anyone can wind up in if they noclip out of proper reality. Of course, it's comprised entirely of abandoned apartment buildings and office space full of Humanoid Abominations.
• Nice Day, Deadly Night:
  • Exaggerated with the first sublevel of Th3 Sh4dy Gr3y, Level 0Zero. The level has a 12 hour day-night cycle, but instead of slowly shifting into day or night like in Real Life, the sky will instantly change from day to night or vice versa like the flick of a light switch. The only way to tell when the time of day will change is the clock inside the shack where you first spawn, where the time of day will change when it strikes twelve. During the day, this sublevel is completely safe with zero entities and lakes full of almond water. However at night, the almond water lakes will turn into liquid pain (even if you took the almond water in a bottle, it would still become liquid pain, so consuming it in either form is not recommended), and the level will become pitch black to the point where you can't even see your own hands in front of you. Using a flashlight won't work due to the Deliberately Monochrome properties of Th3 Sh4dy Gr3y, and the only light source in the entire level is the clock in the shack. The worst part is that the level will become infested with entities which are undocumented due to being impossible to see. So, you're basically dead the moment it becomes nighttime. Luckily, the sublevel is easy to escape before night falls, as you just need to grab a stick and draw a pentagram in the mud.
  • A more straight example is Level 94 "The Animated Kingdom," an old timey large town with a floating castle and houses atop grass hills. During the day, there are no entities in the main town, only appearing inside the castle. The speakers also play cartoony music. At night however, the speakers abruptly stop playing music, and the entities come out. The main entity on this level is exclusive to this level being the animations, who are life sized stop motion figures who attack any living thing that doesn't appear animated like them. More common entities like Smilers, Deathmoths, Skin Stealers, etc. can also appear on this level, but they'll usually be attacked by the animations for not being animated unless they somehow adapt to the conditions. Unlike sublevel 0Zero, it is possible to survive the night on this level by simply hiding away, which is easy to do as the animations aren't very intelligent.
• Non-Malicious Monster: Several of the various Entities that stalk The Backrooms aren't normally hostile and pose little threat unless deliberately provoked. This is in sharp contrast to their often terrifying physical appearances.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The main appeal of the concept is the helplessness of feeling a nebulous danger around the corner in an unfamiliar and confusing place, but always losing sight of it. Of particular note is Level 6, a maze of dark halls that will drive you insane in a mere 48 hours unless you escape; yet, it's completely devoid of monsters...
• One-Time Dungeon: Level !: "Run For Your Life!" is accessed either by a small percentile chance from warping to any level, or by various means that are 100% certain to work. Once you finish this level, you'll never be sent here again, but wanderers have to win the race against entities chasing them to exit the conventional way.
• Pocket Dimension: The Backrooms is often described as this. It's located outside of reality, and consists of nearly identical hallways that seem to go on forever. However, unlike most other uses of this trope, it's implied that victims who enter The Backrooms more often than not do so unknowingly. The Kane Pixels short films further supports this, as it's revealed that The Backrooms was originally created to provide extra storage and housing when Earth would eventually be unable to accommodate its ever-growing population.
• Procedural Generation: To the person in Level 0, this is how each area appears to be generated. The twist is that backtracking can take one to areas different from ones they previously visited. It is even possible to walk in an straight line and end up back at where you started.
• The Promised Land: It's said that there exists a level where Wanderers can live in peace within a 300 floor building with 1000 different compartments. These rooms all have all sorts of luxuries and amenities that make it feel like the perfect paradise after braving through all the tough levels of the Backrooms. Any entities found in the level are friendly and there's even an exit to not only the level, but the Backrooms as a whole! Sounds like paradise, but unfortunately, it is hard to reach.
• Reality Warper: Reality itself begins to fall apart, glitch, and distort whenever Gaius is around.
• Red Baron: Nostalgi Gaius has been referred to as the "Blue Angel."
• Roguelike: Some levels are like this, with a sense of randomized layout and the chance to find Random Drops and encounter entities. Other levels are static more or less, but may have random items appear as well as the chance to encounter entities.
• Scenery Dissonance: Just because a level looks pleasant enough, doesn't mean you're safe. Level 37 has pleasant and relaxing surroundings with its pools of water and bath tiles, but the Hydrolitis Plague lurks in the dark areas for a very painful and frequently deadly infection to the unwary.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • Entering the "exit" in Level 2 and 3 will lead you to "The End," a library with empty shelves and only one computer. "The End" is a trap location meant to trick people into thinking they've left the Backrooms. However, it may have a gate that leads to the actual end.
  • The joke level "The Room" is a room whose only entrance and exit is a door labeled "EXIT TO REALITY (NOT A JOKE)" that only leads to an empty 100m by 100m room with indestructible walls and floor (and possibly ceiling). If anyone is actually dumb enough to enter it, it will automatically close and lock behind them, leaving them trapped to starve to death unless they happen to be lucky enough to have someone else open it for them from the outside.
  • Inverted in a sense with Level "Fun =)." It is advertised as an incredibly fun place to visit; Partygoers make a great effort to lure wanderers through portals into this level with suspiciously optimistic advertisements. The Partygoers even edit the wiki pages to make the level feel more inviting. However, this level is one of the worst traps to enter in the Backrooms as it's heavily populated by Partygoers and has birthday party rooms which conceal deadly ambushes. If you end up warping here, you'd better stay concealed, avoid wandering into the party rooms, and find a warp zone to get out asap as being detected will lead to a most unpleasant demise.
  • To put it mildly, Liquid Pain isn't fruit punch. The ominous crimson color is the first warning sign to stay away, but should you drink it anyway in spite of it being ill-advised to consume unknown food and beverages in general, you'll be in for a rough time.
• Shout-Out:
  • Level 106's description briefly mentions a scene in the movie "The Adventures of Mark Twain".
  • The entirety of Level 729 is based on the comic strip Garfield. In addition, a few of the rooms in Level 729 have been said to match with actual Garfield comics.
  • In a similar fashion, Level 363 is based off of The Amazing World of Gumball, being a complete recreation of Elmore. Random things may come to life and turn into entities as well, referencing the many designs of the characters in said show.
  • The discovery log for Level 94, which is in its own page, briefly mentions the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas in this line: "This place is messed up, like visual effect wise. It's like I'm in "The Nightmare Before Christmas" down here. The entire place is like a Puppet Stop-Motion movie, set in the 50s, milk vans and all!"
• Sorting Algorithm of Threatening Geography: Every level of the Backrooms has a ranking that determines the Survival Difficulty of the level, a 0 meaning that it is safe, a 5 being the most dangerous. However, some levels subvert this, such as Level 611 having an alternative classification of "Hunting Grounds" and being noted as having no safe places and having always imminent danger due to The Sentinel constantly closing in on wanderers.
• Split-Personality Takeover: Gaius will corrupt and take control of her vessel with a vengeance.
• Suck E. Cheese's: Level "Fun =)" has the concept of a maze of hallways connecting to multiple birthday party rooms like you'd find at childrens' entertainment restaurants. However, the level is a death trap heavily populated with Partygoers and the party rooms are traps to get wanderers cornered and painfully killed or transformed. It is strongly advised to avoid this level, though it is possible to escape.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Level 6 has no confirmed threats or entities, but you can hallucinate some due to how visual perception can be altered by being in the dark.
  • Due to the pool water in Level 37 largely lacking in chlorine, it's no surprise that the Hydrolitis Plague, a deadly strain of bacterium, can develop so easily in a level completely devoid of entities.
• Too Awesome to Use: Royal Rations are legendary for being the perfect food, with absurdly high nutrition content for their size, but are so extremely rare that one may be compelled to use the more common Almond Water in case they need the Rations for a dire emergency. This is unfortunate as Royalty Rations are a very efficient food supply and would solve food shortages if abundant enough.
• Trapped in Another World: There is no known way to escape the Backrooms. Theories abound, some Levels claim to have exits to the real world, or "The Frontrooms" as they like to call it, but nothing is substantiated and even then it's practically impossible. Some people prefer to leave it at that, while other people say even that much ruins the Cosmic Horror of the Backrooms and prefer escape to be literally impossible.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: On Level ! (Run For Your Life), if you decided to run towards the pursuing entities, survive that, and make a beeline in the opposite direction, you'll eventually warp/fall into The Void and supposedly be stuck, suspended in nothingness. A very unlikely event due to how obviously stupid it seems but it implies that someone tried this, fell into The Void and escaped to tell the tale, or a camera feed was recorded.
• Unique Enemy: Some levels have the distinction of being the location of exclusive entities not found anywhere else. Gaius' lair is Level 404 where reality is constantly glitching and failing, though be warned - she can visit just about any level she wants to at any time.
• Unnaturally Looping Location: The Backrooms are said to be made up of millions of square miles of empty, identical halls.
• Video Arcade: Level 40 is a 1980s arcade that is seemingly infinite and contains various arcade machines (some of them not existing in the Real Life), vending machines and a bowling alley. Some Facelings are present here, and can be seen using the arcade machines.
• The Virus: Several entities in the Backrooms are infectious, such as the Smilers and Partygoers.
• Void Between the Worlds:
  • The Backrooms revolves around one of these, taking the form of an infinite series of hallways and taking advantage of the concept of liminal space to evoke an "uncanny valley" feeling.
  • Additionally, there is The Void, which is the completely empty space that is thought to exist between all of the levels of the Backrooms and is where you go when you noclip. However, if you get unlucky when noclipping between levels or from the Frontrooms, or one of various other reasons, you can get stuck there.
• We Used to Be Friends: Blanche used to see Gaius as a sister, but now Gaius has decided to play God with all of reality, making them mortal enemies. Gaius views Blanche as a parasite that must be eradicated at all costs.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The Snatcher Weeds do not attack children, but are perfectly fine with attacking adults.

Evan Royalty's Into The Backrooms

"Into The Backrooms" contains examples of:

• Adaptational Backstory Change: There is an Overseer who has responsibility for designing these particular Backrooms and guides Officer Rich through his radio with an electronic voice. However, the operator is Ambiguously Evil as while they seem to have some delight in toying with Rich, they don't directly harm him. The Overseer may have even allowed Rich to return to reality instead of dying to The Entity, albeit, leaving him a mental wreck. The Backrooms also has random furniture, electronics, and supplies that may or may not have come from reality.
• Canon Foreigner: The Entity and the Overseer are not characters from the original Backrooms lore.
• Despair Event Horizon: Officer Rich begins running through the maze-like Level 0 in hopes of eventually reaching the end, but loses composure when the maze seems endless and calls out in desperation. Unfortunately, an entity hears him at some point, and a moaning creature can be heard just around the bends.
  Rich: POLICE DEPARTMENT! ANYBODY IN HERE?!
• Downer Ending: Officer Rich is left an emotional wreck, Claire Park is still missing, and Timothy Park ends up disappearing as well. The portal to Level 0 is never rediscovered. It is also implied that the portal to the Backrooms will continue causing havoc, causing people and objects to continue warping into the Backrooms.
• Eerily Out-of-Place Object: This time, it's not just people, but also furniture and equipment that has warped into the Backrooms. One fenced-off display shows an easy-chair pointed towards a suspended CRT television that resembles a security monitor more than a place to sit and watch television. A sleeping bag has also ended up in Level 0 and was supposedly used by a wanderer earlier.
• Even the Subtitler Is Stumped: Played for horror but also downplayed with the electronic voice on the radio. Sometimes, the computerized voice of the Overseer will reiterate with the voice garbled, but still understandable. The subtitles reflect this with special characters partially obscuring the regular English letters, as if to create an other-worldly experience in both the subtitles and audio. This obfuscation of letters with randomized special characters adds a Surreal Horror to the situation.
• Evil Is Petty: The Overseer seems to like toying with Rich with no clear goal besides amusement. They also seem to be the one responsible for designing and tending the Backrooms.
• Hell Is That Noise:
  • The moans that the entity makes as it follows Rich, sounding like something that might be mistaken for the howl of wind.
  • The entity's screaming has an unearthly quality to it, and Rich is too terrified to try firing his pistol at the unknown threat.
• Reality Warper: The Overseer who maintains The Backrooms — using level editing software — appears to do this from Officer Rich's perspective, communicating through his radio and at one point, teleporting him back to the "start" of the maze.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Air-Vent Passageway that Rich enters seems to be inspired by some reports of air vents being found in Level 0.
  • The Overseer will say "You've seen this all before." at one point. This is a common tag line for the Backrooms in general.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Officer Rich's experience in the Backrooms was traumatic due to being isolated where nobody could find him. His trauma is capped off by an entity chasing him. He survives because he no-clipped back into reality but requires psychiatric rehab due to being left emotionally scarred and thus unable to continue his duty for the time being.
• Wham Shot: Rich's fall into The Backrooms originally served as this, with the video even going under the title "Dispatch" up until after the premiere, according to Evan. However, the video's retitle and exposure to a wide audience does away with the twist aspect entirely.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The end of the video wraps up the episode by revealing in text what happened to Officer Rich and the Park family. Officer Rich requires psychiatric care for his emotional trauma, while Timothy Park disappears shortly after as with Claire Park.

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