Fear is fundamentally different when you’re alone. The creeping shiver up your spine, the thump and thud of far-off noises, and the sense of loneliness and danger are all heightened if there’s no one else with you. That presents a particular problem for Little Nightmares 3. This is the first game in the series to introduce co-operative play, and that means the fear is shared. Crucially, though, it’s not halved, moulding the terror into a new experience that doesn’t dull the expertly crafted atmosphere that the series is known for.
There’s two new characters to choose from in Little Nightmares 3: Low, the slight, bird-skull wearing boy who carries a simple bow and arrow, and Alone, the orange-haired mechanic girl, her patched-up overalls tying perfectly with the metallic wrench slung on her back. This tiny pair are tied together, and the eagle-eyed might realise we’re joining them mid-way through their journey into The Spiral, a loose collection of different disturbing delusions. They have a map, they’ve come through a mirror, and they’re together. Little Nightmares 3 doesn’t need to give you any more narrative impetus than that.
Little Nightmares 3 looks incredible. The sense of desolation and decay permeates every element of the different settings, and the atmosphere remains impeccable, driven by the atonal soundtrack, the creaking, cracking, and groaning of mechanisms, and the haunting calls of crows and creatures.
There are two visual settings on PS5, and Beauty really does make each moment look like a living diorama, with dust motes drifting through the air, and gallons of guts shimmering sickly in the light. The frame rate does occasionally struggle in this mode, but I personally found it worth putting up with for the sake of the visuals. Performance, meanwhile, is silky smooth, but you’re getting a much-simplified lighting model in return. For a game like this, I know which I prefer.
One of the most interesting things about playing Little Nightmares in co-op, is the way the atmosphere permeates your experience of the game. You’ll talk in hushed tones, you’ll call out at the same time, you’ll skulk in silence together, waiting for the right moment to dash across a decaying room, or run from the suddenly-frantic monster at your tail. It definitely alters how the game feels, but the tension, the pressure and grim visual design work as well as they ever have done.
Despite the extremely curated pathway through the game, Supermassive Games (taking over from original series developers Tarsier Studios) manage to bring enough variation and new ideas to present some significant hurdles to your progress. It’s not hard, per se, barring a few unexpectedly cheap deaths or surprisingly harsh moments of combat, but there’s environmental puzzles to sort out, and the way forward isn’t always clear. Communication is key, and if you’re playing as a pair, working together to find the way through is suitably satisfying.
Playing solo is a different experience again. Like in its predecessor, whichever character you don’t pick will be controlled by the AI. Here, you become the leader, with the largely silent follower simply mimicking your actions. Overall, the AI is smart enough to prevent frustration, though occasionally you have to call them over with a hushed “Hey” to get them to engage with what you want them to. Once or twice they also proved just a spot too slow during combat, but they were still more reliable than a human counterpart.
The companionship of the two characters is gently touching. The way they reach for each other, or lift each other up, brings the game some much-needed humanity amidst the otherworldly decay and corruption. Their diminutive frames are unbelievably weak and small, but they have no option but to move forward. That indomitable spirit gives you strength and purpose through Little Nightmares 3, because you want to save them, you want to free them from this horrific dream.
As before, each chapter of Little Nightmares 3 shifts through a different area and a primary antagonist, and how effective they are as nightmare-fuel may rely on your own personal fears. The first section sees you evading a giant doll-baby, plucked scalp and baleful eyes a terrifying contrast to the chubby arms and hands reaching through the side of buildings, seeking out giant rattles, bringing the roof down or grabbing at a tolling bell.
The DualSense is also used to fantastic effect to heighten the imposing stature of this horrible thing, and even when the monster is stomping away in the distance, you can feel its presence through your hands. I think, as a parent, this felt like a particularly hard-hitting start, but later creations ramp up the cold creepiness and ghastly, gruesome atmosphere even further. Is it the best the series has ever been? I think it falls short of Little Nightmares 2, though whether that’s also partly due to the change in atmosphere from playing in co-op, it’s hard to say.
The slight mechanical clunkiness of its predecessors remains in Little Nightmares 3, and that is, if anything, amplified by the inclusion of two players. It’s easy to get stuck, for one player to knock the other out of step just before a jump, or to be unable to quite find the space next to them, and it will lead to a few frustrating deaths. Each save point is normally just a doorway back though, and those light frustrations are ironed out and soon forgotten as you continue ever further into these grotesque imaginings.
