In an endless, flickering, fluorescent maze of peeling yellow walls and like colored, mildewed carpet, you hear something stalking you.
Since the first 4chan post back in 2019, the Backrooms has fascinated and terrified its community of creators. With a mix of creepypasta and urban legend, the Backrooms describes an infinite maze of rooms with a distinctive, eerie aesthetic, and has grown through community contributions into a rich, collaborative fiction.
Each finder of the Backrooms begins by discovering “noclipping.” The term noclip comes from video games. To noclip means to pass through solid objects because of a glitch.
Travelers in the Backrooms accidentally enter the Backrooms by noclipping (or glitching) out of our reality. Noclipping disorients newcomers to the Backrooms, especially when they realize that their noclip takes them in one direction and rarely back to where they came from.
The most common entry point into the Backrooms happens to be the Lobby, or what many call Level 0. The Lobby is an abandoned liminal office space full of yellow-beige wallpaper, damp carpet, and flickering fluorescent lights, creating an unsettling, familiar-yet-strange environment. This atmosphere evokes nostalgia and existential dread, making it instantly recognizable and feared.
Within the Backrooms, dangerous entities like smilers and yellow hounds track you, and have unpleasant plans for when they find you. Hundreds of unique entities dwell on various levels of the Backrooms, and most of them mean you harm.
The Backrooms consist of numerous levels, each with unique properties and threats. “The Lobby”, the well known liminal abandoned office space, is iconic, while others like the “Poolrooms” offer endless water features, providing endless exploration and discovery.
Once you realize you’re in the Backrooms, escaping its infinite labyrinth and levels becomes an all-consuming quest. This quest for an exit, or the possibility of being trapped forever, is a key theme that heightens the legend’s intrigue.
UPDATE March 27, 2025: I’ve added the first pass at Level 0: The Lobby description.