In 2017, video game company Bandai Namco released the first of what would become a hugely successful franchise, ‘Little Nightmares.’
Originally titled ‘Hunger,’ ‘Little Nightmares’ is a horror puzzle game following a little girl called Six, a character who has appeared in every game released thus far.
‘Little Nightmares II’ is a prequel to the first game, expanding on the twisted world of The Nowhere. The third released game, ‘Very Little Nightmares’ for mobile devices, is a prequel to the prequel, so it can only be assumed that ‘Little Nightmares III’ will follow this pattern and bring players further into the past.
The game is in pre-alpha release, meaning it has been fully playtested and is available for pre-order on PC and console. Unlike any previous installations, ‘Little Nightmares III’ has a co-op mode, meaning you can play locally or online with one other person.
With a release date set in July of 2025, ‘Little Nightmares III’ already has a huge fan base and many expectations set upon it. Transferred from Tarsier Studios and handed off to Supermassive Games, many fans are confident in the new developer’s abilities to create an experience rivaling their previous headline titles, such as ‘Until Dawn,’ ‘The Quarry,’ and ‘The Dark Pictures Anthology.’
We know the two main characters as Low and Alone, a ragtag duo of friends who traverse the horrific land of The Nowhere, the universe in which all Little Nightmares games and comics are set. Low is a skinny young boy with a raven mask, while Alone is a ginger-haired girl sporting a yellow hazmat suit and an oversized wrench sometimes used as a weapon. As a player, we automatically play as Low. If you’re playing solo, Alone will be played by a simple AI pre-coded into the game.
The demo lands us in a dingy place called the Factory- a frequently used naming system, with ‘Little Nightmares’ being set in the Maw, and ‘Little Nightmares II’ being set in the Pale City. This type of vague naming conventions serves to create a sense of dread, giving the player nothing to go off but their own preconceived notions of what they believe a ‘factory’ to be like.
The Factory is a dark and dusty building with too-big machinery, conveyor belts the size of whole rooms carrying suspicious materials to who knows where. For the first few minutes, there is an unsettling sense of solitude, as if you are completely alone save for mysterious darting shadows and silhouettes too far away to make out. It isn’t until we come across a familiar room, recycled and repurposed from the first game, with a great, roaming eye that turns everything it gazes upon into a pillar of sand. After you manage to dodge the eye by ducking into shadows and running while it is distracted, the floor begins to descend, and a large, fleshy hand begins a pursuit. The hand seems to belong to a creature much, much bigger than any we’ve seen before.
With a release date set in July of 2025, ‘Little Nightmares III’ already has a huge fan base and many expectations set upon it. Transferred from Tarsier Studios and handed off to Supermassive Games, many fans are confident in the new developer’s abilities to create an experience rivaling their previous headline titles, such as ‘Until Dawn,’ ‘The Quarry,’ and ‘The Dark Pictures Anthology.’
The demo itself is a beautifully terrifying play, and leaves little to be desired in terms of visuals and soundtracks. The characters have already become favorites in the community, and there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that ‘Little Nightmares III’ will meet and surpass the quality of every game, comic, podcast and DLC that has come before.
