Ankoku, a two-person development team, announced Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole, a meditative exploration game inspired by dreamcore aesthetics and liminal spaces. Set to launch on Steam in March 2026 with a demo arriving during February’s Steam Next Fest, the game promises emotionally resonant visuals that feel pulled from forgotten dreams, combined with a meaningful narrative that enhances immersion in these hauntingly familiar environments.
What Is Dreamcore Anyway
Dreamcore emerged as an internet aesthetic movement centered on surrealist imagery that evokes feelings associated with dreams, daydreams, or nightmares. The aesthetic uses motifs like endlessly rolling hills, pastel clouds, rainbows, bubbles, flowers, and empty nondescript buildings to create spaces that feel simultaneously comforting and unsettling. These images trigger nostalgia for places you’ve never been, memories you don’t actually have, and emotions you can’t quite name.
The aesthetic overlaps heavily with liminal spaces, those transitional areas like empty hallways, abandoned malls, hotel corridors at 3 AM, or playgrounds after dark. Liminal spaces are designed for human activity but photographed or depicted without people, creating an uncanny valley of place. Without human context, these locations become architectural shells that feel wrong despite being structurally normal. They’re spaces between destinations rather than destinations themselves.
What makes dreamcore and liminal spaces so compelling is their ability to trigger collective recognition. Millions of people see images of yellow-tiled pool rooms or suburban streets bathed in unnatural light and feel immediate emotional responses. These aesthetics tap into shared subconscious imagery that transcends individual experience, creating a sense of eerie familiarity that feels both personal and universal. It’s the visual equivalent of déjà vu.
How Ankoku Differentiates Their Vision
Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole enters a genre that exploded in popularity following The Backrooms phenomenon and games like Pools, which let players wander through massive liminal environments with minimal objectives. What distinguishes Ankoku’s approach is their emphasis on narrative integration. While many liminal space games focus purely on atmosphere and exploration, Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole includes what the developers describe as a “small but meaningful story” designed to deepen immersion.
The team’s objective centers on showcasing unique, memorable, and slightly nostalgic visuals that resonate emotionally as if plucked directly from your dreams. This isn’t about horror or jump scares but about creating spaces you genuinely don’t want to leave despite their strangeness. The meditative quality suggests contemplative pacing rather than frantic action, encouraging players to absorb environments rather than rush through them.
Ankoku also emphasizes comprehensive Steam Deck compatibility, recognizing that handheld gaming suits meditative exploration experiences perfectly. Playing liminal space games on Steam Deck creates an intimate connection with the visuals while allowing play anywhere, potentially at odd hours when dreamlike states feel more natural. The portability factor could enhance the surreal quality by blurring boundaries between game world and real world.
The Liminal Space Gaming Explosion
The success of liminal space games represents a fascinating shift in what audiences want from interactive experiences. Dreamcore by Montraluz (a different game entirely, not to be confused with Ankoku’s Rabbit Hole) became one of 2025’s creepiest games according to Kotaku despite featuring no monsters, no jumpscares, and minimal objectives. Players simply explored massive environments like Dreampools and Eternal Suburbia, solving environmental puzzles through trial and error.
The genre exploded partly because of collective trauma from COVID-19 lockdowns. Images of empty shopping malls, abandoned offices, and deserted public spaces went from unsettling internet curiosities to lived reality during 2020. Suddenly everyone understood the eerie feeling of spaces designed for crowds existing in total silence. Liminal space aesthetics captured pandemic-era anxiety while providing safe ways to process those emotions through interactive exploration.
Video game logic also naturally aligns with liminal space concepts. The idea of “noclipping” through walls and discovering what exists beyond designed playspaces resonates with gamers who’ve spent decades exploring virtual worlds. Repeating textures, endless corridors, and architectural impossibilities feel familiar to anyone who’s glitched through a game map. Liminal space games make the normally unintentional act of breaking game boundaries into the entire point.
Why We’re Drawn To Unsettling Spaces
The appeal of dreamcore and liminal spaces taps into fundamental human psychology around familiarity and fear. These environments trigger recognition without providing context, creating cognitive dissonance. Your brain insists you’ve been here before even though you logically know you haven’t. This tension between emotional memory and rational knowledge creates the unique unease that defines the aesthetic.
There’s also profound loneliness in these spaces. Locations built for human interaction rendered completely empty emphasize isolation and abandonment. Empty playgrounds suggest children who’ve vanished. Abandoned offices imply workers who never returned. Hotel hallways without guests create questions about what happened to drive everyone away. The absence of humanity becomes presence through implication.
Yet paradoxically, many people find comfort in these spaces despite their unsettling nature. The lack of demands, expectations, or social obligations creates freedom. You’re alone but also safe from judgment or interaction. There’s meditative quality to wandering without purpose through spaces that exist outside normal rules. For people with social anxiety or overstimulation issues, liminal spaces offer respite even as they unsettle.
The Narrative Question
Ankoku’s decision to include meaningful narrative in Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole raises interesting questions about whether liminal space games benefit from story. Part of what makes environments like The Backrooms compelling is their narrative ambiguity. Players project their own interpretations onto empty spaces, creating personal meaning through imagination rather than developer intention. Adding explicit story risks constraining that interpretive freedom.
However, subtle narrative can enhance rather than limit immersion if executed thoughtfully. Games like The Stanley Parable demonstrated how narrative voice can deepen atmosphere in exploration-focused experiences without dictating interpretation. The key lies in suggestion rather than explanation, providing narrative threads players can follow or ignore based on preference. Environmental storytelling through objects, audio logs, or cryptic text allows engagement without forcing conclusions.
The phrasing “small but meaningful story” suggests Ankoku understands this balance. They’re not promising complex plot with cutscenes and dialogue but rather narrative texture that contextualizes exploration. Perhaps fragments of someone’s memories scattered through dream spaces. Maybe subtle hints about why these particular locations matter. The goal seems to be deepening emotional resonance rather than providing answers, which aligns with dreamcore’s intentional ambiguity.
Technical Challenges Of Liminal Spaces
Creating effective liminal space games presents unique technical challenges beyond typical game development. These environments need to feel simultaneously endless and constructed, familiar yet wrong. Level design requires meticulous attention to lighting, scale, texture repetition, and spatial logic that intentionally defies normal architectural sense. Too much variation breaks immersion. Too little creates monotony.
Sound design becomes critical when visual elements are intentionally sparse and repetitive. Ambient audio must create atmosphere without overwhelming, using subtle cues like distant echoes, mechanical hums, or unexplained sounds that suggest presence without confirmation. The silence between sounds matters as much as the sounds themselves. Poor audio design can destroy liminal space immersion faster than any visual error.
Performance optimization also poses challenges. Games featuring massive open environments with draw distances revealing endless corridors require careful technical work to maintain framerates without pop-in or loading screens that break immersion. Steam Deck compatibility adds another layer of complexity as developers must ensure smooth performance on less powerful hardware while preserving atmospheric lighting and environmental detail.
The February Demo Strategy
Launching the demo during Steam Next Fest in February 2026 represents smart marketing for an indie project. Next Fest provides massive visibility as Steam promotes participating demos prominently and players actively seek new experiences during the event. The festival format encourages experimentation as players download multiple demos, creating opportunities for lesser-known projects to find audiences.
February timing also positions Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole strategically ahead of the March 2026 full release. A month between demo and launch gives Ankoku time to gather feedback, fix bugs, and build wishlists while maintaining momentum. Players who enjoy the demo can immediately wishlist for launch notifications, converting interest into sales more effectively than releasing demos months before launch when enthusiasm fades.
Steam Next Fest specifically attracts players interested in indie games and experimental experiences rather than mainstream AAA titles. This audience alignment benefits niche projects like liminal space explorers that might struggle to find players through normal marketing channels. The festival creates a curated discovery environment where Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole competes with similarly experimental titles rather than getting buried under major releases.
What Success Looks Like For A Two-Person Team
Ankoku’s size as a duo creates both advantages and constraints. Small teams move quickly, maintain creative cohesion, and keep development costs manageable. Two people can communicate constantly without coordination overhead that plagues larger studios. Every decision reflects unified vision rather than committee compromise. This agility allows rapid iteration based on community feedback.
However, two-person teams face brutal workload realities. Every aspect of development from programming to art to marketing falls on just two people. Burnout risk is significant, especially when approaching launch deadlines. Scope must be carefully managed to match available resources. The “small but meaningful story” phrasing suggests Ankoku understands they can’t compete with narrative complexity of larger studios and instead focuses on doing one thing exceptionally well.
Success for projects like Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole doesn’t require millions of sales. Modest commercial performance covering development costs while building reputation allows continued creation. Positive reception within the liminal space community, strong Steam reviews, and YouTube/streaming coverage provide validation and marketing for future projects. For indie developers, sustainability matters more than explosive success.
FAQs
When does Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole release?
The full game launches in March 2026 on PC via Steam. A playable demo will be available during Steam Next Fest on February 16, 2026, allowing players to experience the game before launch. The developers are also planning comprehensive Steam Deck compatibility, making it playable on Valve’s handheld device.
Is this the same as Dreamcore by Montraluz?
No, these are completely different games by different developers. Dreamcore by Montraluz is a body-cam styled psychological horror game that released in January 2025. Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole by Ankoku is a separate meditative exploration game inspired by similar aesthetics but with different gameplay focus and narrative elements. The naming similarity creates confusion but they’re unrelated projects.
Does Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole have horror elements?
The developers describe it as a meditative exploration experience rather than a horror game. While dreamcore aesthetics and liminal spaces can feel unsettling or eerie, the focus appears to be on atmospheric immersion and nostalgic emotions rather than scares, monsters, or jumpscares. It’s about creating spaces you don’t want to leave despite their strangeness.
What is the story about?
Ankoku describes the game as having a “small but meaningful story” designed to enhance immersion in dreamlike worlds, but specific plot details haven’t been revealed. The emphasis on “small” suggests subtle environmental storytelling or narrative fragments rather than complex cutscene-heavy plotting. The story appears meant to contextualize exploration without overwhelming the meditative atmosphere.
Will it be available on consoles?
Currently Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole is only confirmed for PC via Steam with Steam Deck compatibility. Console versions have not been announced. Many indie developers focus on PC first before considering console ports depending on the game’s success, so consoles might be possible in the future but aren’t part of the initial launch plans.
How long is the game?
Game length hasn’t been specified. Liminal space exploration games vary dramatically in playtime depending on how thoroughly players explore environments and engage with puzzles or narrative elements. Some players rush through in a few hours while others spend much longer absorbing atmosphere and discovering secrets. The meditative focus suggests pacing is player-determined rather than rushed.
What are liminal spaces?
Liminal spaces are transitional locations designed as pathways between destinations rather than destinations themselves, like hallways, stairwells, hotel corridors, parking garages, or empty malls. When depicted without people, these spaces create an uncanny feeling because they exist without the human context that gives them purpose. The term became popular online through communities sharing images of eerily empty familiar places.
Who is developing this game?
Ankoku is a two-person development team creating Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole. They describe themselves as a duo working on a game inspired by dreamcore aesthetics and liminal spaces. Being a small team allows them to maintain creative vision while also requiring careful scope management to deliver the game with limited resources. Their previous work isn’t widely documented, suggesting this may be a debut or early project.
Conclusion
Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole arrives as the liminal space gaming genre continues gaining momentum, bringing Ankoku’s interpretation of dreamcore aesthetics and meaningful narrative to an increasingly crowded but still fascinating space. The two-person team’s focus on creating emotionally resonant environments that feel pulled from forgotten dreams, combined with their promise of narrative depth beyond pure atmospheric wandering, positions the game as potentially offering something fresh within established genre conventions. Whether the addition of story enhances or constrains the interpretive freedom that makes liminal spaces compelling remains to be seen when the February 2026 demo launches. The emphasis on meditation over horror, nostalgia over fear, and immersion over objectives suggests Ankoku understands what draws people to these unsettling yet strangely comforting spaces. For players who find peace in architectural loneliness, who feel nostalgia for places they’ve never been, or who simply want to wander through impossibly familiar dream spaces without demands or expectations, Dreamcore: Rabbit Hole offers an invitation. The question isn’t whether you’ll get lost in these liminal worlds but whether you’ll want to find your way back out. And based on the developers’ stated goal of creating spaces you don’t want to leave, getting lost might be exactly the point.