Backfirewall_
Fair · Narrative · 2023
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
NO RUSH.
Fair at $14.99. Buy it if you want it.
- Length
- 4.7h 10.1h to 100%
- Value
- $3.19/hr
- Reviews
- 91% of 491 positive
Watch this gameOne alert at $7.56 or less.
Buy now or wait
Discounted in each of its last 8 seasonal sales. Last cut ended 11 days ago.
- Next sale
- Winter Sale, Dec 17 to Jan 4
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
About the game
Hello and welcome to Backfirewall_, a first-person tragicomic adventure set inside a smartphone. You are the update assistant. Solve wacky puzzles to counter the update and save the previous operating system from deletion. The fate of the System is in your hands!
Minimum specs
Minimum on the Steam store: 8 GB of memory, AMD Radeon HD7750, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 or Equivalent, 15 GB of storage. Windows only.
The value story
Across all 36 discounts in the 4 years tracked, the median cut is 60 percent, about 6 weeks apart. Today it is at full price, and its last discount ended 11 days ago.
Against its own genre it lands in the top 14 percent on value. It is pricier than 78 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 90 percent. Among the games that feel like it, The Stanley Parable ($14.99, scores 62) beats it on value, while it beats Through Abandoned: The Underground City ($0.71, scores 49).
More about Backfirewall_
82 from critics against 91 percent from players, and the player number comes from people who own the game.
This site sampled 334 of its Steam-purchase reviews; 2 were written by buyers who refunded it, sampled from reviews written January 2023 to August 2026.
Finishing takes 4.7 hours; clearing it takes 10, which is 2.1 times the campaign.
Valve rates it Steam Deck Verified, and at 4.7 hours it is short enough to finish on one.
The drop-off
94% start to 5% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
What players say
It's pretty cool. Simple story game with some puzzles and some exploration. One thing I don't like about it is lack of any possibility of post-game collectible clean up. Oh you missed 1 or 2 collectibles? Gotta replay the whole game. No level select. No backtracking.
2 more reviews, 1 not recommended
It's a good game. No more, no less Don't expect to get mind blown, as there are several games that uses the same tropes and either did it first or simply better : funny narrator, meta humor, computer/tech theme and puns, real world media and so on. If you've played Stanley Parable and/or any indie game around the concept of smartphone/computers, it probably won't amaze you or feel fresh. But honestly, it works. So...
It actually saddens me to write that this was a disappointment. The fun puzzles everyone's praising in these reviews? Stop appearing about 70% in, and get replaced by fetch-quest levels and walking simulator levels. The story isn't good enough to carry the game on its own, and the later third of the game felt like a slog. To add insult to injury, we get a new really cool and fun mechanism just for the last 5 minutes...
Steam reviews, mixed to its ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
Cite this score
Backfirewall_ scores 57/100 on the BANG Score (fair value) as of Oct 19, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/1920100/backfirewallReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 28, price as of Oct 18. A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.