Bandai Namco brought the upcoming Little Nightmares 3 back into the spotlight with a great looking trailer that debuted on Gamescom Opening Night Live, showcasing all the new unearthly creepiness that awaits us later next year.
It’s no secret regarding my love for the franchise – Little Nightmares 2 was my personal game of the year back in 2021, despite my general aversion to horror games. There’s just something about the world of Nowhere that I love – all drooping flesh and twisted horror – it tickles me in just the right way. When Bandai Namco and Supermassive Games offered me the chance to go hands on with the third game in the franchise, I naturally jumped at the chance.
Welcome back to Nowhere.
Little Nightmares 3 takes us back to the world of Nowhere, moving on from horrific restaurants with a number of health code violations and mesmerizing TV signals to show us something a little bigger. While the trailer focused on a desert like area called the Necropolis, the hands-on demo I got to try was in a twisted candy factory, with a spider-like-multi-limbed matriarch running the show.
While the previous games were a solo affair with an AI driven partner some of the time, Little Nightmares 3 offer the chance to tackle the fear ahead in full co-operative play. Again, you play as vulnerable children – these two are named Low and Alone, but they’re not as defenceless as in the previous titles.
Low is armed with a small bow and arrow, which can be used to trigger distant switches and solve other puzzles. Alone is armed with a large wrench, used to bash open or smash apart other obstacles. From my hands on time thus far, neither of these appear to be used in any offensive capacity, but the duo do appear to have them on hand at all times.
Fancy a Lollipop?
The team at Bandai Namco ushered me in to play a decent 20 minute segment of the game, working in conjunction with another player. While their was a bit of a language barrier between the two of us, we muddled through.
The gameplay demo had us transition across ‘Candy-land’, but I’m afraid it’s not as sweet as it sounds. After warping through some sort of magic mirror, our two diminutive heroes find themselves making their way through the bowels of a factory-like environment, where misshapen fat men are carted around on rails to their various tasks. A few movable crates here, a few switch puzzles with our new abilities there – so far, so Little Nightmares.
Of course, it’s not a visit to Nowhere without coming across a larger enemy that makes your skin crawl, and it’s here where we come across the main foe of this area, a librarian type creature with many, many limbs and a Marge Simpson haircut, and she is to be avoided at all costs.
Sneaking past her required patience, moving from shadow to shadow to stay out of her line of sight – but it doesn’t stay that way for long. As we make our way deeper, there are bugs that swarm around us, scared away only by the light.
One chase sequence later, and we’ve escaped – for now – and as we push through thousands of lollipops strewn across the ground, we witness the true scale of just how big this land of candy truly is.
Fun with Friends
Pleasingly, the team at Supermassive games have taken the mantle from Tarsier rather well, and I noted several improvements – graphically, the game is in great shape, and tonally similar to what we’ve played before. The biggest improvement in my eyes was from a control perspective.
The addition of co-op (online and shared screen) feels like a natural evolution for the series, and it was great working together to solve puzzles and make our way through the environments on hand. It feels far more accurate when controlling the characters of Low and Alone in a 2.5D space, which was always a bit wonky in both of Tarsier’s efforts.
Additionally, despite having to continue another developers franchise, the team at Supermassive have definitely put their own stamp on things with Little Nightmares 3. The world Tarsier have built lives on, and it’s not too dissimilar to the previous games.
Little Nightmares fans should feel right at home, back in Nowhere, where everything is warped and strange and just plain wrong. While this feels more evolution than revolution, fans of the series have plenty to look forward to, and I can’t wait to continue the journey later next year.
Little Nightmares III will release on Xbox Series X|S & Xbox One, PS5 & PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC in 2025.
