The Complex 2 is a Roblox horror game built around exploring the Backrooms as part of a research expedition. From the main menu you pick between two ways to play, and the Complex mode drops you inside a laboratory staging facility before you ever reach the yellow halls. You suit up, grab a gear briefcase, and cross through an airlock known as The Threshold into the maze itself.
Quick answer: Complex mode sends you from a research lab, through The Threshold airlock, into the yellow Backrooms with a briefcase of expedition gear, while a tall wireframe entity roams the halls and can kill you on contact.
Complex and Found Footage modes
The main menu, labelled TC2, offers Play, Progression, Store, Settings and Updates. Choosing Play leads to a mode selection screen with two options, Complex and Found Footage. Complex is the research-expedition setup described here, where players spawn as uniform hazmat units working out of a shared facility.
Starting inside the research staging facility
Every Complex run begins in a laboratory rather than the Backrooms. Your character is forced into a yellow biohazard suit with black connectors, boots, a tinted visor and a gear pack, identical to the other expedition units around you. The opening area is a maze of white corridors, offices and locker rooms that all funnel toward the airlock.
A handful of controls are available from the start. The walkie-talkie toggles with [V] and tunes to frequency 155.500 for team communication. Crouch and crawl sit on [C], sprint on [Shift], the briefcase on [G], and the emote wheel on [B]. The emote wheel itself includes options like Defeated, Pointing, Jump, Approve, Disapprove, No, Boxing and Dance.
The Threshold airlock
The boundary between the facility and the Backrooms is a heavy mechanical airlock. Walking through its doors takes you from the white lab into the yellow carpeted corridors that define the maze. The same airlock is where players retreat to when things go wrong, and it is where dropped gear tends to pile up near the entrance.
What the expedition briefcase holds
Set the briefcase down on the carpet and it opens to reveal four items. Each one has a short on-screen usage tutorial the first time you handle it.
- A handheld flashlight for lighting dark corridors.
- A camcorder, which records with [R] and has a camera light on [F], and can take a photo with [C].
- A roll of yellow wire or cable.
- A roll of blue marker tape, starting with 25 meters of length.
The blue tape is a navigation tool. With the roll equipped you place lines on walls to mark routes and important spots, and longer lines eat into your remaining meters, so the counter matters when you want to mark more than one path. Looking at tape you already placed and pressing [R] removes it. In practice players use it for anything from route markers to writing words on a wall.
Additional gear appears in the facility’s supply area, including a Big Flashlight and Entity Detector scanners, with some items offered for Robux.
Landmarks hidden in the yellow maze
The maze is not only endless yellow corridors. Jagged tears in the wallpaper open into rooms that break from the usual look. One breach leads to a dark, wood-floored room with debris and a slide projector throwing the image of a house facade onto the wall. Another opens into suburban-style hallways with floral wallpaper and wood flooring.
Deeper in, a wood-paneled gallery runs between walls of framed paintings showing large smiling suns. Other finds include a residential staircase with a wood banister leading up to a door, fenced-off patches of dark floor, and wide pillared halls lit by fluorescent strips. Automated rovers and white golf carts also move through the halls, and carts can be driven to cover ground faster.
The entity that hunts the complex
A tall, spindly black wireframe entity roams the maze. It paces across intersections at a distance and can close in fast. In melee range it kills instantly, and it is capable of breaching back into the research staging areas rather than staying inside the Backrooms.
One such breach plays out at an observation window. Yellow gas fills the staging base, scientists scatter, and the entity roars through the glass, pushing everyone toward the emergency exit and back to the airlock. Even after retreating, the creature can linger at The Threshold among the briefcases left by dead players.
When a player dies, their briefcase drops to the floor and is marked by an overhead waypoint showing that player’s Roblox avatar headshot, so recovering gear from the dead is part of the loop.
Daily Quests and XP
Progression is tracked through Daily Quests that hand out XP and reset at 00:00 UTC. Each objective is tied to a game mechanic rather than simple exploration.
| Quest | Reward | Objective |
|---|---|---|
| Bring the rover back | +250 XP | Drive your rover 20 m away, then return it within 3 m without losing signal. |
| Build on the ceiling | +250 XP | Attach a building piece to the ceiling. |
Servers also run player moderation through vote kicks, with a prompt that tallies yes and no votes and resolves on a majority. Between the briefcase gear, the themed rooms and an entity that follows you out of the maze, Complex mode leans on teamwork and keeping track of where you have been, which is exactly what the blue tape and walkie-talkie are there to support.
