Sigmund Freud believed that the power of the uncanny came from placing the strange inside something that would otherwise be ordinary. Dolls, wax figures, settings, scenarios, people that are just off. It’s the familiar, but just strange enough to feel wrong, and it makes us anxious. I couldn’t help thinking of the uncanny as I played Little Nightmares 3. A sense of creeping dread pervaded my time with it, but I also found myself compelled to push forward, see more, and unravel the mysteries of its world. It’s a fine line to walk, but during my hour-long play session with the game, Little Nightmares 3 pulled it off, and left me wanting more when the “Thank you for playing” screen informed me my time was done.
Little Nightmares 3 might be the third game in the series, but it’s offering up a lot of franchise firsts. It’s the first game to be developed without series creator Tarsier Studios. Instead, Supermassive Games, the team behind Until Dawn, The Dark Pictures Anthology, and The Quarry is at the helm. Similarly, it is the first entry in the series to feature co-op play and the first to be a standalone sequel. You don’t need to have played the first two Little Nightmares games to understand this one, and as someone who has never played a Little Nightmares game before, I didn’t have much trouble following along.
The first thing I noticed about Little Nightmares was the way it builds atmosphere. It looks gorgeous, but what stood out to me was how it used light and shadow to highlight things you often don’t want to see or obscure things you might want to. Little Nightmares 3 understands that the scariest stuff is often what you can't see, or only get glimpses of, and it's happy to tease you along and build a sense of impending doom before the big reveal.
Then there’s the audio design; Little Nightmares 3 makes great use of environmental sounds and ambient noise to ratchet up the tension. Whether it’s the soft sound of footballs, the heavy machinery of a candy factory (more on that in a second), or the creaking of an old board that might be just stable enough to get you across that gap, Little Nightmares 3 uses what you hear in the environment to keep you on your toes. And that ambient noise? Genuinely creepy.
The Kids Are(n’t) All Right
Little Nightmares 3 follows Low and Alone, two kids desperately searching for a way out of Nowhere. Low and Alone didn't speak in the sections I played, but you get a feel for their relationship in the little moments where they check in on each other or help each other up. These two characters clearly know and care for one another, and there’s a tenderness in these small moments that sells that, no dialogue needed. I hope it lasts, but this is horror. A lot can go wrong.
No matter who you play as, you’ll be doing a lot of the same things: jumping over obstacles, pushing blocks, navigating narrow pathways over very long drops, and generally solving puzzles so you can delve deeper into the Spiral. But what makes them interesting is their equipment. Alone has a wrench that she can use to turn cranks, activate switches, and even break down walls. Low, on the other hand, wields a bow that allows him to hit switches from a distance, scare away birds carrying a key you might need, or shoot down a crate hanging by a thread from the ceiling.
There are also some problems that you just can't solve alone. Sometimes, that means boosting your partner so you can pull down a switch. Other times, one of you will have to carry a light to scatter the bugs that would otherwise attack you while the other uses the safety of the light to climb a ladder and search for the way forward. And sometimes, you'll just need an extra pair of hands to open a heavy door.
The puzzles I saw in Little Nightmares 3 weren’t necessarily hard, but they always made sure my partner and I were working together and communicating. Little Nightmares 3 works fine without another player - they're instead replaced with an AI version of whichever character you aren't playing that you can call over if you need help and will sometimes show you the way forward - but co-op play is definitely the way to go.
In one particularly memorable scene, my real-life partner and I had to hide from a very scary lady with too many arms, avoiding her while figuring out the way forward before she could spot us. Those moments are where Little Nightmares 3 shines.
The Horror, The Horror
I’d be remiss if I didn’t touch on the environments that make this all possible. I saw two parts of the Spiral in my time with Little Nightmares 3. The first was the Candy Factory, a monstrosity of an installation that was deeply uncomfortable to navigate because we knew we weren't alone.
In addition to the scary lady with too many arms, the building was populated by unnatural workers suspended from the ceiling and the creepy hum of machinery. It was uncanny in all the best ways; something clearly familiar, but also deeply wrong. I compensated by naming each of the lollipops we ran into Steve, and carrying them with me as long as I could. Each time we parted, I was heartbroken. Thankfully, there was always another Steve on the horizon.
The second was the Necropolis, an abandoned ruin in the desert. While the Candy Factory is unnerving because you're not alone, the Necropolis builds dread by reminding you that you are. Each place raises more questions than it answers. Who is the Candy Factory making all these lollipops for? Who are those people hanging from the ceiling? What are all these bodies doing in the Necropolis? What happened here? And are we really alone? In my time with it, Little Nightmares 3 balanced the uncanny and the curious, and as anxious as I was about what was around the next corner, I was also eager to see more and piece together answers.
If there's one thing I don't like about Little Nightmares 3, it's that there’s no local co-op. That said, you can play with a friend online even if only one of you owns the game, which goes a long way toward making up for it.
When my time with Little Nightmares 3 ended, I was sad to say goodbye to Low and Alone, but eager to visit the earlier games and see what I'd missed. Little Nightmares 3 is disquieting in the way horror should be while being an engaging co-op game that motivates you to push through the tension to see what's around the next corner. In fact, you might even call the balance uncanny. If Supergiant Games can continue to walk that line, Low and Alone are going to have a compelling journey indeed. I hope they make it.
