Little Nightmares III

Under new management.

Little Nightmares III is a title that, by all accounts, shouldn’t exist. This isn’t a slight against the game whatsoever, but the series’ original developer has moved on. In the driver's seat this time around is Supermassive Games, the studio behind Until Dawn, The Quarry, and the Dark Pictures Anthology. That said, Supermassive Games has a history with the series as they handled the enhanced ports of Little Nightmares II, thus allowing them to play in the horror-platformer sandbox that makes up its interesting and wonderful world. 

Little Nightmares III is a reboot of the series that features new protagonists and a new adventure, but one that feels almost a bit too close for comfort to the originals. It can, at times, lack that sense of dread as you attempt to see what is around the corner, or that it rarely has new ideas of its own that feel like they could be staples for the series going forward. There is still a wonderful game here, but with a new team, a new adventure, more could have been done to place their own stamp on the series and really take the reins. 

The Little Nightmares series has had some wonderful set pieces, almost as if you are playing in these macabre dioramas, each featuring some clever puzzles or obstacles that require you to manuever around, often in the way of stealth, or hiding until some big bad has gone away. This latest iteration still has that design with small avenues of combat, such as one character firing off an arrow, and then the other using a big wrench to finish them off. And, with co-op finally being added to the game, you can tackle such events with a friend. 

Now, co-op has been heavily touted here, and for good reason. It’s been a much-requested feature. However, while co-op is absolutely the way to play this game, it is online only, with no local co-op. While this was to maintain a certain feel of the game, not to mention moments where you are not on screen together, I really wish that local co-op had been a thing, especially at how co-op was a key advertised aspect of the game that the marketing team was leaning on considerably. While there is a friend pass to alleviate the need of having two copies, it still shines a light on a glaring misstep.

While you can still rely on an AI partner, so much of this game is built on those multiplayer moments. In fact, sometimes the AI character will solve certain things on its own, removing that sense of discovery between two real people. It’s a shame because some puzzles are rather clever, but few rarely require more than a few minutes to put the pieces together of how it all works. 

Little Nightmares III features two lead protagonists: Low, a bow-and-arrow-wielding boy with a plague doctor mask, and his pigtailed companion in Alone, who sports an aviator helmet and wields a wrench. Each character engages in puzzles through their weapons, as they do in combat as well. What is odd, however, is that while in single player, you cannot swap freely between the two. I had a few moments where Low would glitch, and while I could handle certain parts of the puzzle as Alone, I couldn’t switch to Low to fire off an arrow to proceed. I had to reload the checkpoint and try again. While this didn’t happen a lot, I did have three moments in the game that required such a fix.

Each location is filled with some solid level design, evoking moments of suspense and stealth, but for every great set piece, there are countless empty areas and endless tunnels that feel like something more could have been added to give us more puzzles or something to allow us to move from set piece to set piece. 

Unlike the previous two games, there are only four levels here, despite the same overall length of the game. Creepy houses, carnivals, candy factories, and a sand-swept Necropolis round out the locations, and they do a good job at conveying the look and feel of what the series expects, but nothing more. We get some moments where you walk towards and away from the camera instead of just left to right, but few moments that really stand out. 

Supermassive Games may have nailed what made the first two games so beloved, but it feels like a safe road they’ve traveled here as opposed to taking some risks to mark their own stamp on the game. Still, fans of the original games may certainly find a solid time here, as some puzzles and encounters are quite nicely handled here, despite few changes to the formula to really justify the need for a new entry. 

Developer - Supermassive Games.
Publisher - Bandai Namco Entertainment. Released - October 10th, 2025. Available On - PS4, PS5, Xbox One/Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 1/2, PC. Rated - (T) - Blood and Gore, Violence. Platform Reviewed - PlayStation 5.
Review Access - Review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.