Summary
WhenLittle Nightmares 3was revealed last year, it was a welcome surprise. I always found the first two games more creepy and tense than scary, but I still loved their claymation-esque art style, muted storytelling, and the unique mix of light platforming, puzzles, and hide-and-seek gameplay.
While the third entry certainly looks the part, it has a lot of expectations to live up to considering Tarsier Studios,Little Nightmares’ creator, left the series behind to work on something new (which turned out to be the spiritual sequel Reanimal). I was nervous at first, but if anyone was going to understand Little Nightmares’ unique take on horror, it wasThe QuarryandUntil Dawndeveloper Supermassive Games.
During last year’sGamescom,a lot of my worries were put aside after I saw a hands-off demothat showed how the series’ heart and soul had been recaptured, although the lack of split screen left me a little bemused. This year, however, I finally went hands-on with Little Nightmares 3 and saw for myself how the new focus on co-op actually plays.
A Little Nightmare For Two
The demo I played took place in a suitably nightmarish area called the candy factory, which saw protagonists Low and Alone trying to sneak their way past a creepy old lady who presumably wanted to eat them. So far, so Little Nightmares, which quickly reassured me that Supermassive Games gets what makes the series’ twisted heart tick.
My partner for the Gamescom demowas the wonderful Scott McCrae, who definitely didn’t spend most of it trying to kill me.
I wasn’t able to choose which of the two unfortunate children to play as when I jumped in, but I was lucky enough to take control of Alone, who can swing around a massive wrench that breaks open doors and locks for the bow-and-arrow-wielding Low. Beyond each having a unique weapon (a first for Little Nightmares, by the way), the two seem to play identically to one another and will feel familiar and comfortable to anyone who has previously helped Six and Mono through their own respective nightmares.
In fact, one of the first things to note about Little Nightmares 3 is just how much it feels like the previous games. Alone and Low both run the same, jump the same, and mostly solve puzzles the same, with the only difference I saw in my demo being the new weapons that are used during combat and to gain access to new areas. If I didn’t know that another developer had taken over the reins, I never would have guessed.
Once my partner and I had gotten used to Alone and Low’s new abilities (and tried our best to kill each other with them), we started making our way through the candy factory for as-of-yet-unknown reasons. If you’ve played Little Nightmares before, then the gameplay loop of jumping around the environment, picking up objects, and crawling around will be very familiar, only this time you’re doing it with a partner who occasionally needs to help you open a vent to continue onwards.
What’s Little Nightmares Without Terrifying Freaks Of Nature?
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Little Nightmares game without some freakishly stretched-out adult trying to kill a few innocent kids. Eventually the pair realised that they weren’t alone in the factory and that a gangly old lady was out to get them. This led to a typical game of hide-and-seek in an office area that was made a little more frustrating than usual with two players able to muck things up.
Although the first appearance of Little Nightmares 3’s creep of the week was unsettling, the new focus on co-op gameplay inevitably takes away a lot of the tension. That might have been mine and Scott’s fault for trying to throw objects at one another most of the time, but even when we got serious , it was noticeably less scary than LN and LN2.
The rest of the demo had Alone and Low climbing around the candy factory and watching from the rafters as even more horrible adults (including one who was gruesomely hung from his own harness) made mountains upon mountains of lollipops. As we jumped down to a new candy-filled area, Alone and Low came across a box with a very familiar eye symbol on it and the demo came to an end.
The Little Nightmares series has a ton of different eye-related symbols, so the one we saw could just be continuing that tradition.
While I enjoyed my time with Little Nightmares 3 and found myself shocked at just how well it captures the spirit of Tarsier’s original two entries, the candy factory did feel like a strange way of showing off the co-op gameplay. Beyond opening vents together (which feels more like a way of getting two characters in one place) and playing hide-and-seek with a monster, everything could have easily been done in single-player.
This is especially weird when the demo I saw at last year’s Gamescom showed a ton of unique interaction between Low and Alone, who used their weapons in tandem with one another to defeat enemies, while also completing puzzles in a sandy area that would have required more teamwork than what I saw in the candy factory.
Even if this year’s hands-on demo didn’t showcase the co-op elements quite as well as I’d hoped, I know that there are more complex and interesting puzzles waiting in the final release. I wish I could have seen more of them here, but I’m at least a lot more confident that Supermassive Games understands its nightmarish assignment.
