Liminal space horror is all about feeling unease, like walking down a fluorescent-lit hallway after midnight or standing alone in an empty playground. Horror games have long understood the power of the almost-familiar: the way an abandoned mall, a vacant hotel, or an endless office can become a stage for the mind’s most persistent anxieties.
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The following titles feature liminal spaces, making them the focus of their terror, transforming bland thresholds and overlooked corners into existential nightmares. These examples are some of the best liminal space horror games that trap players in the uncanny valley between worlds.
Anatomy
This House Is Far From Ordinary
Anatomy
OpenCritic Reviews
- Released
- 2016
- Genre(s)
- Psychological, Horror
Created by Kitty Horrorshow, Anatomy is a short but unnerving experience that invites players to explore a deserted, utterly generic suburban house. The twist is that the home itself is the monster. Each room is packed with cassette tapes explaining the "anatomy" of a dwelling, as if the building is a living organism. The more that players listen, the more the house warps, room by room.
Anatomy excels by focusing on the places between places - closets, stairwells, kitchens, etc. The horror is subtle, psychological, and cumulative. No jump scares, no monsters. Just a place...and the dawning suspicion that players may have outstayed their welcome.
Anemoiapolis: Chapter 1
A Deceptively Horrific Experience
Anemoiapolis
- Released
- May 3, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Horror, First-Person, Exploration
The first thing players will notice in Anemoiapolis is the oppressive silence: miles of vacant locker rooms, public pools, and the echo of footsteps. Navigation is purposely disorienting. Fans may think they’re looping, but subtle changes twist every attempt at mapping the place. This title essentially plays on the childhood fear of being left behind after hours, compounding it with a heavy dose of dream logic.
There are fleeting moments of relief, but they only underline the uncanniness. Players won't be able to shake the feeling that something is fundamentally wrong with the location, which is essential for a great liminal space horror game.
Lost In Vivo
A Nightmare Beneath The Streets
Lost in Vivo
- Released
- October 5, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Psychological, Horror
Lost in Vivo doesn’t hide its inspirations. Silent Hill’s DNA runs through pretty much every sewer and service tunnel. KIRA’s indie darling finds its own voice in the unending sprawl beneath the city streets. Fans play an unnamed protagonist whose support dog is swept away in a storm, which prompts a descent into an endless, ever-shifting labyrinth of pipes, subways, and derelict infrastructure. Lost in Vivo leans heavily into claustrophobia and is very effective at it as a result.
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Everyday locations take on an unspoken oppressiveness. Not to mention that the sound design is brutally effective, layering industrial hums with distant echoes until the world above feels as unreal as the nightmares below. Lost in Vivo is a fever dream, and it leaves players questioning whether they’re searching for the dog...or themselves.
POOLS
Those With Aquaphobia Need Not Apply
Pools
- Released
- April 26, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Simulation, Horror, Exploration
POOLS isn't recommended for those with a fear of water. Players will find themselves alone in a gigantic, maze-like aquatic facility with no clear goal. There are no traditional objectives, and there are definitely no lifeguards. At first, the experience may seem calming. But the further players go, the more the architecture starts to rebel.
Some hallways lead nowhere while others warp in ways that defy geometry. Despite the lack of a visible threat, POOLS creates a persistent feeling of being hunted, as if something just beyond one's peripheral vision is tracking every move.
Escape The Backrooms
The Strange Internet Legend Comes Alive
Escape the Backrooms
- Released
- October 23, 2025
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Horror, Psychological Horror, Survival Horror
Escape the Backrooms is all about yellow-carpeted halls buzzing with dead light and low-grade static. The game doesn’t bother with narrative. Rather, the only goal is to escape, only that every exit leads to another layer of escalation. Escape the Backrooms nails the aesthetic it's going for with its stained walls and the sense of an office building repurposed for no one and nothing.
The suggestion underlying it all is that fans may not actually be alone, and the things hunting them are equally at home in their surroundings. It’s a test of endurance because each level piles on new iterations of spatial unease. It turns internet folklore into a slow-motion panic attack.
The Backrooms 1998
VHS Horror At Its Finest
The Backrooms 1998
- Released
- February 20, 2025
WHERE TO PLAY
Where Escape the Backrooms is clinical, The Backrooms 1998 is deeply personal. Filtered through VHS static, the game drops players into a childhood memory gone horribly wrong. There’s a plot, delivered through found footage and voiceovers. However, the real terror is in the environment itself, which features no shortage of bloodstained yellow wallpaper and an enemy that can pick up on the user's microphone.
The Backrooms 1998 understands very well that liminality is often linked to a person's memories. The monsters are less important than the sensation of becoming trapped in a looping recollection. As such, the effect is unnerving and sad at the same time.
The Exit 8
The Endless Subway
The Exit 8
- Released
- November 29, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- t
- Genre(s)
- Puzzle, Simulation, Adventure
In The Exit 8, players are stuck in a never-ending Japanese subway tunnel and are tasked with spotting anomalies while making their way toward the titular exit. There are no monsters or cheap scares. Instead, it's the creeping suspicion that something is off. Subtlety is at the forefront: walls that shift, posters that change, and lights that flicker on a delay.
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A lot of the uneasiness stems from the slow realization that escape may not be possible, which is gold when it comes to horror game design. By stripping everything down to its essentials, it lets the players' own anxieties do most of the work.
No Players Online
Abandoned Games Are Scarier Than You Think
- Platform(s): PC
- Released: 2019
- Developer(s): Adam Pype, Viktor Kraus, Ward D'Heer
- Genre(s): Horror
Set in a defunct multiplayer shooter server, fans wander empty maps meant for a dozen players, surrounded by the forgotten artifacts of online play (like bullet holes, capture points, and echoing announcer voices).
The tension in No Players Online lies in the unsettling emptiness of digital nostalgia. Glitches and spectral figures begin to intrude. It encapsulates the melancholy of a dead server, turning every pixelated corridor into a mausoleum for long-forgotten fun. The experience is short, but lingers long after fans log off.
The Complex: Found Footage
Beware "The Complex"
The Complex: Found Footage
- Released
- August 18, 2022
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Horror, Multiplayer
The entire experience in The Complex: Found Footage is presented through the eyes of a camcorder-wielding protagonist. The "Complex" in question is a monstrous, concrete underworld of office spaces, maintenance tunnels, and liminal commercial zones all rendered with a sterile, haunted-urban feel.
The scares are subtle, mostly environmental, with the occasional hint of something inhuman lurking in the shadows, and the psychological toll is unmistakable. By the end, players will feel as if they’ve actually survived a nightmarish expedition. For fans of the Backrooms mythos or analog horror in general, The Complex: Found Footage perfectly captures the genre’s blend of banality and terror.