Backrooms: Exit from Supermarket

Backrooms: Exit from Supermarket is an atmospheric indie horror game that leans heavily into the unsettling power of liminal spaces, transforming an everyday location into a place of quiet dread and constant tension. Developed and published by CGI LAB GAMES, the game draws inspiration from the Backrooms mythos, but distinguishes itself by setting the experience inside a massive, abandoned supermarket. This familiar environment, stripped of life and logic, becomes a maze of endless aisles, humming lights, and eerie silence, making the ordinary feel deeply wrong in a way that is both subtle and effective. The core of the experience revolves around slow, methodical exploration. Players are trapped inside the supermarket with no clear sense of direction, forced to navigate through repetitive corridors of shelves and storage areas in search of clues, keys, and exits. Progress is rarely straightforward, and the environment itself often feels intentionally disorienting. Layouts loop back on themselves, rooms feel larger than they should be, and visual repetition creates a creeping sense that escape may not be possible at all. This design reinforces the psychological horror aspect, relying more on unease and uncertainty than on constant jump scares. Survival in Backrooms: Exit from Supermarket is built around stealth and environmental awareness rather than combat. A hostile entity roams the supermarket, and direct confrontation is not an option. Instead, players must rely on sound and positioning to stay alive. Objects scattered throughout the environment can be picked up, dragged, or thrown to create noise, allowing players to manipulate the creature’s attention and carve out brief windows of safety. Every interaction carries risk, as even accidental sounds can reveal your position, turning routine actions into tense decisions. Sound design plays a crucial role in maintaining the game’s tension. The constant buzz of fluorescent lights, distant echoes, and subtle environmental noises create an oppressive audio landscape where silence is just as threatening as noise. Footsteps, shifting objects, or a single dropped item can suddenly feel catastrophic, especially when followed by the sound of something moving in the distance. This reliance on audio cues encourages careful, deliberate play and keeps players in a heightened state of alertness throughout their time in the supermarket. Visually, the game embraces a minimalist but effective aesthetic. The supermarket is rendered with muted colors, harsh lighting, and long sightlines that amplify the sense of emptiness. Shelves stretch endlessly, products sit untouched, and signs point to departments that no longer make sense. The lack of visual variety is intentional, reinforcing the idea of being trapped in a space that has lost all meaning and function. Rather than overwhelming players with detail, the visuals work in tandem with the layout to create a sense of isolation and mental fatigue. Narrative elements are understated and largely environmental. The game does not rely on heavy exposition or cutscenes, instead allowing players to piece together fragments of context through notes, environmental clues, and the gradual unfolding of the space itself. This approach fits well with the Backrooms theme, where mystery and ambiguity are key components of the horror. The story is less about understanding exactly what happened and more about surviving the experience and grappling with the feeling of being lost in a place that should never exist. As an Early Access title, Backrooms: Exit from Supermarket shows both promise and limitations. The foundation is strong, with solid atmosphere, effective sound-based mechanics, and a setting that feels genuinely unsettling. However, the current scope is relatively contained, and some players may find the content light or repetitive during longer sessions. That said, the developer has indicated plans to expand the game with additional areas, improved enemy behavior, and more narrative depth, suggesting that the experience is intended to grow over time. Overall, Backrooms: Exit from Supermarket succeeds in capturing the quiet, suffocating horror that defines the Backrooms concept. It is not a fast-paced or action-driven horror game, but rather a slow burn built on tension, paranoia, and the fear of being watched in an empty place. For players who enjoy psychological horror, stealth-focused survival, and liminal space environments, it offers a memorable and unsettling journey. While its Early Access status means it is not yet fully realized, the core experience already delivers a strong sense of dread that lingers long after leaving the supermarket’s endless aisles. Rating: 6/10