1 person found this review helpful
Not Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 7.3 hrs on record
Posted: 5 Jan @ 8:17pm
Updated: 5 Jan @ 8:21pm

Early Access Review
It's incredibly frustrating that this game has so many positive reviews, especially given its current state. A year has passed, and the only notable additions are the ability to enter a downed state and a few extra items. That's hardly progress.

Where is the new content? Despite the announced public release date (October 28th), no meaningful updates have been made available to the public, only beta testers have access. Promises of substantial updates, like three new maps every two months, were quietly scrapped. It seems the only response to criticism, including my repeated concerns raised on your Discord, was to walk back on those promises AFTER people had already purchased the game.

To make matters worse, the game is deliberately designed to extend the playtime just beyond two hours, the minimum threshold for Steam refunds. This feels like a calculated and manipulative move to lock players into their purchase before they realize how little content there is.

The developer and founder, Blake Thomas, proudly claims to have bootstrapped his studio, Triiodide, to $10M+ in annual revenue in just three years. With resources like that, the lack of meaningful content updates over the past year is baffling. If creating lasting memories through multiplayer gameplay is the mission, where is the effort to deliver on that promise?

It feels like a blatant attempt to mislead players into sinking money and time into a game that delivers little in return, while boasting financial success.

Congratulations on the broken promises, lack of meaningful progress, and manipulative tactics. This isn't how you treat a player base.
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4 Comments
Kubi 6 Jan @ 12:58pm 
I agree this is one of the better Backrooms games, but my frustration isn’t about expecting a full experience overnight, it's about the handling of development and communication over the past year.

Early access is a partnership. Players invest money and trust, expecting progress and transparency. While the dev's health issues are unfortunate, the lack of updates and communication predates those challenges. A studio earning $10M annually should have measures, like additional team members, to maintain progress during setbacks.

There’s a balance: enjoy the gameplay but hold developers accountable for their promises. Transparency, timely updates, and realistic roadmaps are reasonable expectations.

I get that negativity in Discord can be demoralizing, but constructive criticism isn’t trolling. Critical feedback shows players care about the game’s success.

Ultimately, I want this game to thrive, but that requires respecting the player base and the trust we’ve given.
Sklatscht 6 Jan @ 10:39am 
while i agree with the fact that development has been slow and barely communicated; the dev has been made aware of that multiple times.
maybe without the health issues we'd have an update already, maybe it would still take another year.

but there's two ways one can go about this game
way 1: enjoy the few hours of gameplay, take it as is, maybe leave a comment along the lines of "the game is great it's just way too short"
way 2: enjoy the few hours of gameplay and then turn that into frustration that there isn't more.
it's in early access. we can not demand or expect a full game or levels to fill 30 hours gameplay. it's quality-wise the best made backrooms game out there atm; i also wish it had more quantity to it, but it doesn't.

with backlash like your initial review, or the intellectual specimen that join the discord daily to ask "is the game dead yet?"; i can absolutely understand why the Dev isn't hellbent on delivering stuff that might not fit his quality expectations.
Kubi 6 Jan @ 9:31am 
Let me clarify..

The issue isn’t the existence of a public beta, but the lack of meaningful updates to the main game. Betas should test content, not replace promised updates. If new content is only in beta, that's a workaround, not progress.

I wasn’t aware of the developer's health issues and sincerely hope for their recovery. That said, a year of minimal updates isn’t solely due to recent challenges, especially for a studio with $10M+ annual revenue, which should ensure progress despite setbacks.

This isn’t personal, it’s about accountability. Criticizing broken promises and manipulative refund tactics doesn’t make me a “clown”, but if it does, I’ll own it.

Respectfully, sympathy for a developer shouldn’t overshadow a game’s delivery to its players :)
Sklatscht 5 Jan @ 8:54pm 
"only beta testers have access"

yeah right clicking the game in library and downloading the public free beta is really hard, only real beta testers can accomplish that.

completely ignoring the fact that the solo dev is in the hospital recovering from health issues as well, but i guess your 2 hour google and wikipedia search didn't spit that out.

absolute clown