Last Updated on October 10, 2025 by Angel Melanson
The horror genre is filled with gory, bloody, violent, and horrific games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Dead Space. In instances like these, the games are made for more mature audiences in mind. The Little Nightmares series tones it down a notch and relies more heavily on environmental and contextual storytelling. This time around, Little Nightmares 3 engages players more deeply with co-op and evolved combat, while retaining its unsettling atmosphere.
Little Nightmares 3 follows two protagonists named Low and Alone as they try to escape The Nowhere, a realm filled with monsters. There’s absolutely no dialogue in this game, aside from grunts and enemy noises, so the storytelling hinges entirely on how Low and Alone react to their situations while traversing The Nowhere. It manages to pull this task off thanks to the detailed and lively appearance and feel of the protagonists. Despite Alone and Low wearing an aviator and a crow mask, respectively, I could still sense their despair and fear whenever they were being hunted down by a large monster in a chase sequence.
Despite the more kid-friendly and cutesy aesthetics on the surface, Little Nightmares 3 isn’t suitable for young kids. The grotesque surroundings are filled with things like bugs and nooses, which imply that something much more sinister is happening in The Nowhere. Amazingly, Little Nightmares 3 very rarely contains jump scares. Instead, it does a stellar job of ramping up the suspense during stressful moments. There was one part where I had to sneak past a few giant monsters without accidentally bumping into them or making any noise. It’s both exciting and relieving when you finally get past these sequences, and the highs and lows really feel like players deserve these moments.
What makes Little Nightmares 3 different from its predecessors is that co-op is an essential part of the game, and there’s more combat involved. Players can pick between playing as Low or Alone, with the former wielding a wrench and the latter using a bow and arrow. They function as both puzzle-solving tools and weapons. Alone can smash windows, crush rocks, and press large buttons while Low shoots down hard-to-reach objects. While there’s no difference in their movements, the tools offer just enough to make them play a bit differently from each other.
If you don’t have someone to play with, the character you don’t pick is controlled by AI, and it’s competent enough to know when it has to use the respective tool to either solve the puzzle or hit enemies. Fortunately, there weren’t any complications.
The puzzles strike a good balance of difficulty, but veer a bit on the easy side. Sometimes, you’ll need to find and replace light bulbs or figure out how to cross a room without being seen. However, these puzzles never got to the point where I felt like my intelligence was being insulted. The only instances where puzzles became somewhat difficult were when it was simply too dark to see, but this can be remedied in the settings menu by increasing brightness.
Due to being a 2.5D platformer, the characters can move in 3D space, but many of the platforming elements are in 2D space. This creates problems, as it can sometimes be difficult to judge the distance between jumping platforms. In one case, I literally just walked off the side of a steel beam because I misread where my character was standing. I thought I was right in front of it, and that led me to an annoying death. Thankfully, generous checkpoints didn’t make this too big of an issue. Controls can be a bit cumbersome as well. During chase sequences, sometimes I’d try to jump onto a ledge, only for my character to simply jump up and down, leading to the monster catching up and having to restart the encounter. It was frustrating having to repeat these numerous times from the beginning to avoid instantaneous deaths.
As for the combat, it’s not nearly as central to Little Nightmares 3 as you think. Combat sequences are scattered throughout the campaign, but aren’t featured heavily enough to feel like a detriment to the overall experience. In fact, they offered a refreshing break from the puzzle-solving and chase sequences. The combat does a satisfying job of incorporating co-op elements as well. In one of the earliest encounters, Low and Alone come across a group of skeletons. Low has to shoot their heads off, while Alone has to follow up by smashing them to incapacitate them permanently. It’s simple, but effective.
Little Nightmares 3’s short campaign, lasting around 7-10 hours, is a welcome change of pace compared to the horror giants of the gaming industry. It has just enough mystery to keep you engaged to the end, and the co-op elements offer a degree of replayability that the series hasn’t seen yet. It’s a compact game, but one that’ll leave a lasting impact.
Little Nightmares 3 will be available October 10.
