New free-to-play co-op adventure game climbs Steam charts, despite sitting at "Mostly Negative" reviews

Some games trend on Steam because they’re great, such as Nighthold: Number 1. Others trend because they’re free, launched at the right time, and a lot of people hit "Play" at once.

The Backrooms Deluxe 2 belongs to that second category. The free-to-play co-op horror roguelite released on December 24, 2025, and Steam currently shows it at "Mostly Negative" - with only 30% of 155 reviews being positive at the time of writing, and most people referring to the game as "half-baked". At the same time, people clearly tried it in big numbers. SteamDB’s tracking (see below) shows the game hit an all-time peak of 2,805 concurrent players on December 25, 2025.

So what’s going on? A big chunk of the early frustration seems to be server-side. On the game’s Steam Community hub, the developer posted about scaling problems, saying they weren’t prepared for the sudden concurrency spike and that online mode might not work as intended while things get upgraded. A later post included a temporary emergency fix intended to reduce server load, along with an invite to try again if your first session was rough.

As for the game itself, Deluxe 2 is a remix of the original The Backrooms Deluxe - now structured more like a roguelite run. It adds Modifiers (positive/negative effects) that change your run and adjust how many Deluxe Coins you earn at the end. It also promises "much better" multiplayer replication, permadeath, and a bigger achievement list - although the reviews don't really reflect the same. Monetization-wise, the base game is free, but Steam also shows a paid add-on: The Backrooms Deluxe 2: Founder's Edition (shown on the store page as recommended DLC). Also, one more practical detail: Steam currently shows "Steam is learning about this game," which usually means Steam Deck/controller labelling and telemetry-based tags are unconfirmed.

If you’re still curious, this looks like one of those launches where the idea and timing got players through the door, but the first-day experience pushed a lot of them right back out. Checking back after server stability improves might be the sensible move here.