Little Nightmare 3: The Final Preview

While I'm not the one who chooses to watch a horror movie or read a weird book, I actually love a good horror game. Resident Evil 2 and 4's bar remake is great, Alan Wake 2's unconventional storytelling is incredibly suspenseful and memorable, and my favorite weird experience comes from a room with a friend trying to keep my characters alive in the game, like until dawn or Quarry. The truth is, while I love the horrible atmosphere, the creepy atmosphere and the shocking, disgusting character design, I’m not really playing these games alone, only meeting other people with the rest of the room and only enduring the horrible anxiety.

That's why I'm so excited after playing Little Nightmares 3 for nearly two hours: the third entry in Bandai Namco's horror puzzle-platformer series is designed to be a completely cooperative two-player adventure (though it can be played solo if you like), and based on the level I played, it's shaping up to fit the same niche as puzzly co-op classics like Split Fiction and Unravel Two.

To be fair, Little Nightmares 3 isn't as terrifying as a traditional rating of M horror games by any means. It's a surreal, dreamy horror made from children's nightmare. The level of my partner and I played has us sneakily and sneakily roaming Carnival, filled with huge spots of people waiting for the Carnival game, stuffing my face with apples, and accidentally hitting one of my own sticks, like a cake. It was a pleasantly disturbing, rich atmosphere, and in my conversation with Little Nightmares 3 producer Coralie Feniello, who also served as associate producer in Little Nightmares 2-she talked about how Little Nightmares games were built on a little nightmares kid in a world that didn't fit in theirs. The carnival level does pin the feeling when we climb through the vents, lift each other to open the doors, and avoid oversized monsters in an unfamiliar, unwelcome place.

We played the game of low-key and lonely, and these two new protagonists were introduced in Little Nightmares 3. The couple is looking for a path that can take them out of nowhere. I control it alone: ​​a young girl with braids and a pilot helmet with a wrench, while my partner is low, a little boy wearing a crow mask and using a bow and arrow. Our two different tools lead to the encounter of battle, in which case the low need to charge us the undead arrows that I will do the job by smashing the decapitated head with a wrench before the animation, the headless body takes one of us away. This requires ongoing communication, and while any immediate death of errors will be somewhat frustrated in our presentation, the generous checkpoints give us the motivation to run perfectly.

The controls for all of these are pretty simple, which is another reason for the Little Nightmares 3 setup, and is a great choice to play with a partner or friend who may not be familiar with the game. Most actions are performed with only a few buttons and are difficult to achieve through the intensity of communication and doing everything, just like when you are chased like an unnecessary mouse in a big house.

Just like a battle, each puzzle is designed to be completed in two characters. Nothing too much, but a highlight made us struggle to find power to the radio in multiple rooms. Once it was found, one of us had to adjust the radio to the correct frequency so that power was powered on the lights in the room, while the other used lights could turn on the way forward. Just like in a co-op game like Split Fiction, it’s also fun to communicate with your partner to solve them. Little Nightmares 3 also seamlessly weaves its world into a puzzle design. In a room we need to move a box to use it as a platform to climb higher, and the boxes we can use are an integral part of the classic serrated magic trick. Only this time, no magic involved, the victims were torn in half, and their intestines were unceremoniously spilled onto the floor as we pulled the box apart.

Moments like this do sell the unique art style of Little Nightmares 3, which combines clay-like models with dense, moody lighting. The way the light spreads through lonely windows to the dark room is shocking, and the Carnival is the only outdoor section with a rainy sloped black background, which is a very memorable atmosphere. Carnival is just one chapter in Little Nightmares 3 and I'm so happy to see how its visuals translate into completely different settings throughout the game.

I should point out that this is my first experience with the Little Nightmare series. I've never played the first two developed by Tarsier Studios except for researching before this preview event. In 2019, Tarsier Studios was acquired by Embracer Group and now they are working on Reanimal, a nightmare game that will be released next year (and both tend to collaborate on their own). Bandai Namco retained the Little Nightmares franchise in the deal and worked with Supermassive Games in its third entry, the studio behind horror games, such as the quarry until Dawn and I mentioned earlier. In a conversation with Feniello, I asked long-time fans of the series what changes had their expectations for Little Nightmares 3, and she said Supermassive worked hard to understand the DNA of the original work, while also engaging their passion for the universe.

And, she said the co-op was the highest-ranking feature in the Little Nightmares community, which led to Bandai Namco's decision to build this sequel around the idea. While my impression of Little Nightmares 3 so far does not have the background of the original work, I can say for sure that I really enjoyed the time and it made me interested in checking out the entire franchise, which is worth it. It will utilize the friend's pass system, where only one player needs to purchase a copy of the game to play online with friends on the same platform. For any solo player out there, you can play Little Nightmares 3 with your AI companion instead of another, and Feniello notes that they also work hard to balance the single player experience.

I'm glad I didn't play alone in the second half of the demo, which allowed us to work through a more carefully orchestrated stealth action kit that we had to escape from an old man with his…son? pet? It is not clear what those little animals that chase us on all four people are, but it's part of the fun. It begins with the progress we are forced to tear the boards off the walls, and from there, each room is another test of avoiding being caught.

This sequence requires us to learn the convention of residents in this hell landscape, watching the man pour a bowl of food in the kitchen, because we learn that we need to take a break in the next safe place as he climbs up the table to dig. In our exercise, I enjoyed a little hard work, and my exercise was always a little hard work, and I really liked my own efforts, and I really liked my partner, and I ran a little hard work, and I ran a little hard work, and I worked hard, and I could learn hard, and I could learn hard, and I could learn hard, and I could learn hard, and I could learn hard, and I could study hard, and I could study hard, and I could study hard, and I could study hard. success. We also separated a short section where my partner was locked in a cage and needed to make noise to distract the man, and I tried to keep him free. After several failed attempts, we finally escaped without any damage and I was excited to see other intense scenes Little Nightmares 3 will get us into the full game. Little Nightmares 3 will arrive on all major platforms on October 10.