Backrooms 97 - Retro Descent

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Find the way out of the Backrooms before the Smiler finds you.

Platforms: iPhone
Price: Free with ads
Rated: 4.5 out of 5 on the App Store (3,391 ratings)
Players: 1
Controls: Touch: on-screen stick to move, swipe to look.
Made by: Benfont Limited
Released: 2023

App Store

What frightens You wander the Backrooms' liminal levels, from Level 0's empty corridors to the dim Poolrooms and a hotel of endless windows, looking for the way out while entities called nextbots, among them the Smiler's white grin, chase you through the dark.
Content: jumpscares, chases.

Backrooms 97 - Retro Descent is a small first-person Backrooms game for iPhone. You move through Level 0, the Poolrooms, a liminal hotel and a city level, find the key or exit of each, and run from the nextbots and the grinning Smiler that hunt you there.

About Backrooms 97 - Retro Descent

Backrooms 97 - Retro Descent is a mobile horror game by Benfont Limited, released on the App Store in 2023 and updated since, with a larger graphics update in late 2025 that added a leaderboard. It is free with ads, and a single purchase removes them.

It draws on the Backrooms, the internet legend of endless yellow office corridors you can slip into out of reality. The store lists four places: Level 0, a maze of empty corridors; the Poolrooms, tiled halls of still blue water; a liminal hotel whose atrium walls are lined with identical windows; and a deserted city. The store screenshots show plain, dim geometry, with a timer counting your time in the Backrooms.

The levels are not empty. Entities the game calls nextbots roam them, and among them is the Smiler, a floating white grin in the dark. You look for the key and the door that lead out of each level while listening for footsteps that get louder and faster. Players who reviewed it on the App Store describe a short run, from a few minutes to under twenty, and ask for more levels.

It suits younger players or anyone who wants a quick taste of the Backrooms on a phone; players after a longer Backrooms game will find more in the larger ones on PC.

How to play Backrooms 97 - Retro Descent

Pick a level, starting with Level 0.
Move with the on-screen stick and look around by swiping.
Search the corridors for the key and the exit door.
Listen for footsteps and run when a nextbot or the Smiler comes for you.
Reach the exit to move on to the next level.

Screenshots

Backrooms 97 store art: a dim Poolrooms hall with pillars, stairs and dark water under the word POOLROOMS

Backrooms 97 store art: a pale hotel atrium lined with rows of identical windows above a courtyard

Backrooms 97 screenshot: first-person view of the Poolrooms with pool ladder rails, a touch stick and the time-in-Backrooms counter

Tips

Footsteps get louder and faster as an entity closes in; move away before it reaches you.
Learn the layout around the exit so you can sprint to it once you have the key.
Play with headphones to hear where the entities are coming from.