Which work is a video game set in an empty office environment that feels unsettling because it is abandoned and endless?

Which work is a video game set in an empty office environment that feels unsettling because it is abandoned and endless?

• A. Artschwager - Six in Four (2015)
• B. Kant on beauty
• C. The Backrooms 2022
• D. The Stanley Parable 2013

Answer: (D)

A game can feel unsettling by placing you in a familiar, everyday space that has been drained of life and purpose, turning a mundane setting into a maze of endless depth. The Stanley Parable does this most clearly: it drops you into a ordinary office building with rows of desks, white walls, and flickering fluorescent lights, and then strips away any sense of normal activity. The corridors loop, rooms repeat, and the sense that the place goes on forever without meaning is what creates the eerie vibe. The tension comes from navigating this sterile world while a narrator guides—or contradicts—your choices, highlighting how empty space and control (or the illusion of it) can feel unsettling in themselves. While other options don’t fit as well, it’s worth noting that The Backrooms also plays on endless, uncanny spaces, yet its core identity isn’t as tightly tied to a concrete office environment as The Stanley Parable is. Artschwager’s piece is a visual artwork, not a video game, and Kant on beauty is a philosophical text, not a game.

A game can feel unsettling by placing you in a familiar, everyday space that has been drained of life and purpose, turning a mundane setting into a maze of endless depth. The Stanley Parable does this most clearly: it drops you into a ordinary office building with rows of desks, white walls, and flickering fluorescent lights, and then strips away any sense of normal activity. The corridors loop, rooms repeat, and the sense that the place goes on forever without meaning is what creates the eerie vibe. The tension comes from navigating this sterile world while a narrator guides—or contradicts—your choices, highlighting how empty space and control (or the illusion of it) can feel unsettling in themselves.

While other options don’t fit as well, it’s worth noting that The Backrooms also plays on endless, uncanny spaces, yet its core identity isn’t as tightly tied to a concrete office environment as The Stanley Parable is. Artschwager’s piece is a visual artwork, not a video game, and Kant on beauty is a philosophical text, not a game.