8/10 – approx 4 hours
Review finished on 2/21/2026
This is the perfect liminal space explorer: no monsters, no distractions, just the rooms themselves. Their atmosphere and their sound design are the “monster”– you need to explore creepy and otherworldly sections to progress. The creepiness and uncanniness are the main point, you have to interact with them to get anywhere rather than just running through them to escape from some cable monster. As a liminal space enthusiast and photographer, this game slam dunks on the eerie fascination that these spaces evoke. A mix of familiarity, comfort, yet serious nerves and uncanniness. My only criticism is that I personally don’t resonate with the Poolrooms branch of liminal spaces as much, but this game still does provide a pretty nice variety of backrooms homages and environments to get lost in.
Walking around these levels invoke all the right questions and feelings as you explore. These spaces look so bizarre without people being there and they were clearly designed by someone, but there’s no rhyme or reason to them existing here, and nobody is around. This clip from a video essay by Youtuber Cresendex captures what I’m getting at and why the spaces themselves generate feelings of unease without monsters. Watch from where this link starts until around the 15:15 mark.
POOLS doubles down on this eerie feeling, and I truly felt immersed finding my way around these rooms. So much so I forgot that I’m actually still a part of society IRL and in a house with other people. I was really out here trekking carefully though my dimly lit basement gaming area to grab water as if I was picking apart a level from the game lol. They nailed the liminal vibes. Thank god they made a PS5 port so I can actually play the game at a nice frame rate and resolution. The game looked and ran absolutely beautifully on PS5.
I also enjoyed the surprising amount of depth in the exploration of each level. Sure there isn’t THAT much to find outside of some secret rooms, exits, or weird landmarks, but they bothered to hide secrets at all. This is especially true with the massive postgame level with many branching paths and achievements you earn alongside finding them.
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