Review: Little Nightmares III (PS5)

Engaging with Little Nightmares III feels akin to slipping back into a well-known dream, one that long-term admirers will identify as soon as it commences.

Supermassive Games hasn’t aimed to overhaul the franchise in any radical manner, choosing instead to replicate the grotesque terror and charming puzzles that have characterised Little Nightmares from its inception.

This marks the initial installment not created by Tarsier Studios, and we’ll confess to harboring some reservations, especially with the Until Dawn developer introducing online-exclusive co-op to the threequel.

Not that it was significant. Despite our best attempts (and we truly made an effort), we never actually succeeded in playing co-op. Somehow, coordinating a session during the review time frame proved to be the most challenging puzzle of all. However, honestly, going solo turned out to be precisely what we desired from the game.

Little Nightmares III is a puzzle-platformer where you embody either Low or Alone. Two tiny best friends striving to find their way back home. Set in the Spiral, an entirely new collection of alarming locales ranging from a sinister carnival to a warped candy factory, the game has you and your partner tackling environmental puzzles and stealthily evading capture by genuinely terrifying adversaries.

By deviating from the known sights and sounds of The Maw and Pale City, Supermassive stirred concerns about diluting the very essence that rendered Little Nightmares so unforgettable: its interconnected, dark, and profoundly disquieting universe. Anxieties that seem rather silly now that we’ve finished the game’s 4 to 6 hour journey. Twice.

Unlike the previous two titles, which were divided into five chapters, Little Nightmares III is separated into four, with two DLC chapters intended for the future. Throughout your adventure, you’ll slink through the corpse-strewn Necropolis, wade through the gooey lollipop pits of the Candy Factory, and sneak along some typical hallways of the Institute.

Each chapter lasts about an hour for first-time players, although the third, Carnevale, extends a bit longer, a twisted rollercoaster through rain-drenched tents and flickering lights.

Supermassive Games evidently comprehends the aesthetic language of Little Nightmares, capturing that grand scale, tension, and attention to detail brilliantly. Yet beneath the Spiral’s fresh appearances lies a robust sense of déjà vu.

Numerous puzzles, sequences, and set pieces feel directly extracted from the earlier titles, making the world feel more recognizable than terrifying. In the initial hour, we even found ourselves dodging the gaze of Necropolis’s colossal Monster Baby, a nearly identical doppelgänger of the janitor’s bucket puzzle from the original Little Nightmares.

While we could elaborate extensively about the game’s fresh ensemble of horrifying adversaries, and now would be the appropriate time to do so, we’re reluctant to disclose too much. Supermassive’s game resonates with many of the same themes as its forerunners, and the least we can do is allow you to run in dread from its grotesque villains.

Little Nightmares III looks and sounds just like a Little Nightmares title — as it ought to. The most significant alteration is, of course, the emphasis on co-op, a first for the franchise.

You’ll toss shoes at unreachable buttons, crawl through confined wall vents, and at one stage climb over a magician’s sawing box — which may or may not encompass a severed human corpse — just to traverse the oversized realm. With all the hallmarks and finesse of a good platformer, it’s straightforward enough to accomplish, yet you’ll likely require a robust stomach to endure it.

Previously, solo players handled everything independently — moving boxes, pressing buttons, and smashing eerie doll children with an oversized wrench. Here, the head-crushing responsibilities, among others, are divided in two, with minimal significant change to the formula.

You’ll need to select your preferred role right from the outset, deciding between two playable protagonists. As Low, the raven-masked traveler, you wield a bow capable of cutting ropes, shooting buttons, and decapitating those same reused creepy doll children — the first move in a two-part combo.

For our playthrough, we opted for Alone — her bright red pigtails and oversized jumpsuit charmed us. She possesses a slightly less formidable wrench than in Little Nightmares II, but can still break through walls, activate mechanisms, and deliver the second step by smashing the aforementioned dolls’ grotesque little heads to dust.

Simply put, one cannot advance without the other — a co-op axiom we wouldn’t mind as much if Supermassive had introduced more diversity in the puzzles. They’re not terrible, not in the slightest, but we’ve encountered these challenges previously. Only now we’re whispering directions to our partner to avoid being devoured by the same familiar foes. Something that left us unconvinced in our final preview of the game.

Bear in mind, we played Little Nightmares III solo, which meant rolling the dice on an AI companion. It’s always a risk relying heavily on a bot to manage core tasks without it frustrating you — being in the right position, shooting arrows at the nearest threat, and not giving away the solution to a puzzle.

Before our initial playthrough, we hoped the AI would perform like Six in Little Nightmares II, and to our delight, it did, allowing us to issue commands to Low with minimal frustration. Sure, it reduces half the game’s puzzles to the push of a button, and we were disappointed our little bot friend didn’t want to play catch with us between frights, but we’re happy Little Nightmares III features one of the proficient AIs.

Nonetheless, if we can’t have local co-op, the capability to switch between characters at each point would have been a welcome addition for the single-player purists.

A final note on performance: we reviewed Little Nightmares III on a standard PS5, engaging with roughly 90% of the game in Beauty mode for that additional detail. That was simply our choice, as there’s little visual distinction between modes. Regardless of how you opt to play, however, the game runs seamlessly from beginning to end.

Conclusion

Little Nightmares III is a nightmare worth experiencing, even if you’ve envisioned it all before. Supermassive Games holds a mirror to the franchise, reflecting the series’ delightful horror, clever puzzles, and grotesque universe. Yet it plays it safe, contributing little in the way of novelty. Online co-op is the most significant change, but solo gaming remains the favored experience. On the whole, Little Nightmares III is unsettling enough to make your skin crawl — just not sufficient to wake you up.