How to Play Backrooms: Code Yellow

Quick answer

Backrooms: Code Yellow is a co-op survey game: you and up to five friends enter an infinite procedural Backrooms complex, complete the day's research work - recording entities, photographing anomalies, recovering lost employees - and then get back out alive with the data. Funding from completed work pays for the next day. That is the whole loop; everything else is teamwork.

The core loop, phase by phase

Phase	What happens	What it means for you
Prep	Pick up the day's work and kit out before entry	Know your tasks before you step in - a run spent wandering is a run wasted
The dive	Explore, run tasks, collect data, watch for threats	Depth is optional: richer work is deeper in, and so is everything dangerous
The return	Carry your data back out of the complex	Everything hinges on making it back - losing the crew deep costs the whole trip
Funding	Returned work converts into funding for the next day	Better-funded dives can push further and take on more demanding tasks

Is it like Lethal Company or REPO?

Players constantly file it next to Lethal Company and REPO - a squad, a hostile procedural site, a task list and a tense walk home. The difference is tone and pace: this one is slower and exploration-first, built around documenting the place rather than hauling loot. Community comparisons on that point were consistent through launch week: if slow-burn dread bores you, watch a stream before buying.

Playing with 1-6 players

Online co-op for up to six, with single-player supported per the Steam listing.
Team up through Steam; the store also lists Family Sharing, so library sharing works normally.
Everyone needs the Windows/Steam build - there is no console version, no Mac build, and nothing to crossplay with at launch.
Split the task list before you walk in. Pairs cover documentation jobs faster and nobody gets left alone in a bad zone.

Your first dive: a checklist

Read the task list first. Several job types are documentation chores that go faster if you plan the route around them.
Learn the camera before you need it. Recording and photography are core task mechanics, not optional flavour.
Stay within sight and voice range. The complex punishes spread squads - regroup before every transition.
Pick your turnaround point on the way in. Deep runs die on the way back, not on the way down.
Bank the day's data before you gamble. One last deep probe can cost the whole run's funding.
Don't hoard strange objects. Data gets handed in at the lab - it only pays when it is out of the complex.

What we still don't know

Exact payouts, task counts per day and difficulty scaling beyond "deeper is worse" are not published yet. This page is checked against the launch build and gets updated as the developer shares more.