Little Nightmares III Preview – Co-Op Nightmares

Little Nightmares has really earned a reputation for itself as one of the premier spooky sort-of-platformers out there. It's garnered lots of acclaim through word of mouth, and that's paid off. According to Bandai Namco, it's sold 20 million units across the franchise.

However, this time around, things are a little different. After Tarsier Studios was acquired by Embracer, the franchise stayed with Bandai Namco. Now Supermassive Games of Dark Pictures fame is helming development for Little Nightmares III.

Another big change here is the shift toward co-operative play. While not strictly required, single-player gameplay still slots in an AI to control the opposite character. In other words, teamwork is essential in this game—and in some cases, detrimental to its fun.

Low and Alone in the Middle of Nowhere

Little Nightmares III stars two children named Low and Alone, and they're lost in a surreal world called the Nowhere. This space exists between dreams and reality, and they're trapped in the Spiral, which comprises of multiple dystopian worlds.

In my demo at PAX West, we played through the Carnevale level. I controlled Alone, the girl who wields a giant wrench like a club. A colleague played as Low, who uses a bow and arrow.

Almost every puzzle we ran into required some form of teamwork. Practically every crate needs both players to push or pull them, and defeating enemies requires a coordinated one-two punch, starting with an arrow to the head.

It fosters this sense of desperation and dependency in the player. You know you're not strong or able enough to escape this spooky place alone, and you need your companion if you want to have any chance to survive.

Overall, Supermassive did a good job of making the Carnevale feel unnaturally spooky and otherworldly. The oppressive rain creates a dreary atmosphere, and honestly, carnivals at night are already pretty unsettling. Add an army of creepy-moving puppets and giant, mangled hunchback types, and you've got yourself a perfect vibe for Halloween month.

Co-Op Brings Worries

While the overall vibe and atmosphere set the mood well, I found myself pretty quickly taken out of it at various times throughout our play session.

Some of the puzzles felt a bit too obtuse for us to figure out, which left us re-exploring the space over and over again until we realized the solution. And it wasn't that we overlooked the next step; we both found signals to be unclear, and they didn't quite telegraph what the solution was.

Other puzzles required skulking around monsters a very specific way using stealth. The windows for running from one place to the next felt just a little too tight for how slow the characters move while crouching. Even worse, figuring out the solution to these segments often means getting a little further than you did last time, scrambling to figure out what's next, and hopefully hiding before you're caught.

When one player is seen, it's a pretty immediate game over. There's no leeway to avoid capture, and then you're reset to the latest checkpoint. Honestly, the co-op aspect only made this more frustrating, as now you're both replaying the same thing and hoping the other doesn't reset the sequence.

I'm all for immersion and letting players discover the world, but when the punishment for the slightest error is constant retrials, the cycle tends to get wearisome.

Granted, part of this is a skill issue, which I'll readily own up to. I've also never played the previous games in the series. The Carnevale sequence we played occurs partway through the game, so I'd like to hope that by the time you naturally get there with your co-op partner, you'll both understand the gameplay and signals better. As a vertical slice with no context, I found it to be appropriately atmospheric but obtuse to the point of frustration.

Little Nightmares III Preview | Final Thoughts

With such a focus on co-operative play, I do find it odd that there's no split-screen or same-screen option for in-person co-op. This feels like a great opportunity to spend time together in the same space, and facilitating an online session through Discord or something feels like it gets in the way of the magic.

Even worse, I feel like playing the game solo wouldn't capture the same essence, considering how the core gameplay works. Waiting on an AI partner to do its part feels like it could come off a little hollow, but I'm just speculating.

Still, I think if you're looking for a spooky game for the Halloween season, Little Nightmares III is shaping up to be a decent option, if not for its atmosphere alone. It feels properly haunted and eerie thanks to the oppressive nature of the enemies and the dark, dreary presentation. I just hope the puzzle work and stealth sections feel better as the gameplay naturally ramps up from a fresh start.

Little Nightmares III was previewed for two hours at PAX West courtesy of Bandai Namco.