By Ozzie Mejia

Copyright shacknews

Halloween is rapidly approaching and that means it’s the season for spooky stories. It’s time to scare adults and children alike with macabre imagery and twisted tales meant to haunt the mind and soul. Bandai Namco’s Little Nightmares series has veered on the more wholesome side of horror, terrifying players without resorting to over-the-top gore and violence. While Tarsier Studios is no longer at the helm for the series for Little Nightmares 3, Supermassive Games shows an understanding of what makes these games what they are. While some unfortunate design choices inevitably hold it down, it’s still a brilliant story of two friends trying to survive a frightening world with nobody to help them but each other.

Poor, unfortunate souls

Little Nightmares 3 tells the story of Low and Alone, two small children who are lost and seeking to find their way home. They find themselves stuck in the Spiral, a twisted world filled with indescribable horrors and monstrosities. Low and Alone jump across the world through gateway mirrors, which take them to different environments, like an abandoned desert, a dystopian candy factory, and a twisted carnival.

Little Nightmares 3, like the other games in the series, excels at minimalistic storytelling. There are no drawn-out cutscenes, nor is there spoken dialogue. This game tells its story through simple gestures and physical expression. It’s all done to great effect, as the main characters garner emotion throughout the game with little more than simple movements. Without ever saying a word, they express despair, hope, and a frantic sense of fear depending on the situation they’re in.

What helps enhance the storytelling even further is the basic presentation. There’s no HUD. Tutorials are used very briefly at the start of the game and are never seen again. The game makes the most of the entire screen to tell its story, creating a greater sense of atmosphere. That atmosphere is helped greatly by the effective use of the game’s simple mechanics. It feels like a wholesome horror story in the vein of a movie like Coraline or books like the Goosebumps series, the latter of which came to mind immediately upon seeing killer wooden dummies. It’s the kind of story that anybody can experience and walk away with an uneasy feeling in the pit of their stomach.

It takes two

With Little Nightmares 3’s story focusing on two main characters, tandem play is essential. This game is meant to be played with two players with both characters working together. With that said, let’s get this game’s biggest negative out of the way, which is that there’s no local co-op. Bandai Namco uses the Friends Pass system so that anybody looking to play doesn’t have to buy the game twice. Outside of that, the game supports online co-op along the same platform ecosystem.

While all of that is fine, this is a game that’s begging for local co-op and for friends and loved ones to be able to experience it in the same room. There are sequences where both characters find themselves in separate rooms, but even if a split-screen section would have taken away some of that immersion that Supermassive was aiming for, it would have been a preferable trade-off.

It is possible to play the game solo with a CPU-controlled partner. In many cases, the CPU is a capable companion, knowing when to jump in for specific tandem scenarios. It’s not quite perfect, though. There were a few cases where my partner sat on their hands, forcing me to restart from my previous checkpoint. One of those instances came at the very beginning, where I attempted to play as Alone, but the CPU-controlled Low wasn’t helping with their arrows. This is where I also learned that once you pick a character for the story, you’re stuck with them for the long haul. Solo players cannot switch characters between, or even during, sessions.

With all of that out of the way, the co-op puzzles in Little Nightmares 3 are often inspired. Low and Alone have their own distinct tools to help them flip switches or smash panels to open the way forward. Those tools can also be used for combat. Combat isn’t this game’s strongest point, though there thankfully aren’t too many of these sections. Whenever the time to fight does come, there are some clever co-op mechanics at work, testing players’ ability to fight as a team.

Puzzles mainly consist of exploring the surrounding area, pushing and pulling switches, climbing across distant spots, or taking advantage of the environment. Many of these solutions are simple. They can be found after poking around the room, interacting with objects, and climbing different platforms. These puzzles stand out because they emphasize the importance of communication between players. Not only can characters not speak aloud, but players can’t even communicate through voice chat. Communication comes down to a ‘Call’ button that initiates a loud whisper, though it’s a function that should be used sparingly, otherwise it’ll draw unwanted attention.

On that note, these puzzle rooms will often set the stage for some intense stealth sections where players need to figure out whether to tiptoe quietly, find a hiding place, or simply run like hell. Some sections will even separate the two characters, requiring clever use of the ‘Call’ button to distract enemies and allow for the other player to sneak away. There’s a lot of trial and error involved in these stealth sequences, but fortunately, the checkpoints are forgiving, for the most part.

There were some frustrations in my time with the game and they mainly involved not knowing where characters were lined up. With the camera being static and the settings normally being darkly lit, it was sometimes difficult to determine where my character was in relation to objects in front of or above them. This led to some errant plunges down cliffs, forcing me to restart certain sections.

It can also sometimes be difficult to tell what’s an interactive object and what isn’t, but Supermassive does make up for that with some detailed accessibility options. It’s possible to highlight interactive and carriable objects different colors, which doesn’t just help more visually impaired players, but also younger kids who may sometimes struggle to find what’s what on the screen.

Deep sleeper

Little Nightmares 3 understands the value of atmosphere in a horror game. The worlds are as captivating as they are creepy with increasingly wondrous visuals that make you want to keep going and see how much weirder things can look. All of this adds to an engaging story that leaves an impression without overstaying its welcome.

Even if two friends can’t experience Little Nightmares 3 in the same room, it’s still a game worth enjoying. At the end of the day, it’s sad that I can’t share my awe and wonder to my partner personally in the moment, but at least I can share those feelings on Discord. And this tale of friendship is one that will definitely generate feelings.

This review is based on a PlayStation 5 digital code provided by the publisher. Little Nightmares 3 will be available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch 1 & 2 on Friday, October 10 for $39.99 USD. The game is rated T.