Little Nightmares 3 review – co-op night terrors

The developers of the original Until Dawn take over with the new Little Nightmares sequel, but how successful are they at recreating the series’ uniquely creepy atmosphere?

Horror games are effective because they negate the two most common ways of diffusing tension in horror films. You can’t play a game with your hands in front of your face, or while blocking your ears, and you can’t say, ‘I’d never have gone down to the cellar in the first place’, because in a game that’s exactly what you’ve just done.

While horror games are plentiful, the Little Nightmares franchise adds an Inside style twist, by being both cute and unnerving. The way its tiny protagonists move around its macabre environments is immediately reminiscent of children clambering over furniture, and they’re similarly maladroit when carrying and throwing things, or simply running away from the many-armed horrors trying to kill them.

Original developer Tarsier’s acquisition by Embracer Group means it no longer has the rights to the franchise, which is quite the shame since it’s what made them famous in the first place. The IP now rests with publisher Namco Bandai, who handed over development duties for Little Nightmares 3 to Supermassive, a studio with more than a passing knowledge of making horror games, although not always entirely successfully.

As if in recognition of that, or in deference to a franchise they’re just getting to know, the very last thing this outing does is mess with the formula. As in the previous game, you’re guiding a team of two childlike but creepy heroes – melancholically named, Low and Alone – through a succession of themed levels. Their doll-like size means even modestly scaled pieces of scenery need to be climbed, often with the help of improvised ladders, or by giving each other a boost up.

This time you can also play in co-op, which is only available online via a multiplayer subscription, with local co-op disappointingly not an option. It’s perfectly viable played solo though. Whichever character you choose is ably backed up by their computer-controlled counterpart. That’s important not only because you’ll frequently need to collaborate, but because each has different skills.

Alone’s got a giant spanner for smashing enemies and buttons, while Low has a bow and arrow, which does the same thing, but from a distance. You’ll sometimes be called upon to defeat enemies together, with one decapitating them with an arrow and the other smashing their heads once they hit the floor, but more usually those skills are required separately.

That means Alone might need to demolish a weak patch of wall, while Low can sever ropes suspending a useful out-of-reach item. There are floor switches to stand on, levers to pull, fuses to change, and wobbly planks to traverse, but rarely in significant combinations, making the majority of its puzzles brief and straightforward.

When you don’t have a co-op partner you can press a button to call your AI-driven chum, requesting their particular skill, although they’ll often step up and do it automatically without even being reminded. You’ll also notice, when entering a new area, whether or not your buddy bothers to follow you, offering a clue about where your focus should rest next.

That’s useful, because while most puzzles are incredibly simple, there are times when the game’s vague signposting breaks down completely, leaving you wandering a series of rooms trying to figure out what on earth you missed. The lavish detail of each area makes them look gloriously dilapidated in the game’s murky lighting, but it can be tricky to pick out which elements are interactive.

The upside is that the atmosphere is palpable, whether simply wandering around, or participating in one of the game’s many set pieces. Early on some of those involve the attentions of an enormous broken baby doll, its grotesque fat fingered hands shattering walls, groping blindly for your miniature duo in an attempt to carry them off and presumably devour them. It’s brilliantly done, and every bit as discomfiting as it sounds.

Judged on atmosphere and art direction alone, Little Nightmares 3 is superlative. It’s a pity the same can’t be said for its gameplay, with puzzles that too often rely on trial and error.

First you have to figure out what exactly the game wants from you, which usually takes several deaths, and then you endure even more as you attempt to pull off your task without falling foul of whatever monstrosity you’re trying to evade. The game’s final set piece is possibly the worst example, its annoyingly arbitrary demands are almost like playing one of Dragon’s Lair’s pernickety, rote-learned levels.

There are flashes of brilliance, the puzzle involving the reality-warping Alone doll being a particular highlight, but most of the time the game’s content to just reuse the same few ideas. When you first work out you can smash the window panel in a door using your giant spanner, it’s a minor eureka moment. Not so much the fourth time. This lack of invention leaves the game relying almost solely on its mise en scène and sound effects, the grisly ambience doing most of the heavy lifting.

In fairness, that’s also backed up by first rate haptics. Through the DualSense, you can feel the little heroes straining as they push open a heavy trapdoor and sense the rumbling bass of background horrors you only see in distant silhouette, the controller regularly sounding like an idling diesel engine as it works overtime to emphasise the environment’s dismaying sound effects as viscerally as possible.

Despite its sometimes pedestrian puzzle design, Little Nightmares 3 remains an enjoyably disquieting journey right the way through to its poignant ending, its atmosphere and the beautifully observed motion of its characters helping distract from its often samey challenges. Supermassive clearly have the chops to continue the franchise, but will hopefully do so with a greater sense of innovation when it comes to the next game.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC
Price: £34.99
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Developer: Supermassive Games
Release Date: 10th October 2025
Age Rating: 16

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