After about an hour of playing Little Nightmares 3, I solved the puzzle with half of one person, got high scores in carnival shooting games and escaped the murderous claws of a fanatical baby. As a 2-foot-tall young man trying to survive with my colleagues in the pathological dangers of a dementia area, I felt fear and delighted.
I only filmed the first two small nightmare games, but in my short preview of Little Nightmare 3 it feels like a refined version of the series’ “Prespondence: Little Protagonist” encounters a big and grim world full of escape traps, avoidance and terrifying, terrifying, terrifying, weird enemies. At the scale of animated horror movie 9, mix it with the Maudlin settings of the darkest stop action director Henry Selick, allowing players to enjoy dangerous rides and encounter dangerous rooms.
This time, the players are not alone. In Little Nightmares 3, developed by super large games, two players (or one and an AI companion) choose between low characters (a boy with bowed bird masking) and alone (a girl in jumpsuits and wrench) who rely on each other and use unique tools or just good OL’s fashion teamwork. Sometimes this means hopping one box for another to jump on, but other obstacles require a rather complex puzzle.
In the game, low profile and solely seek to escape the ubiquitous dystopian land roulette. My preview is limited to one of these fields – Carnevale, a dementia circus where our little characters have to sneak up at the feet of weird workers (or their bodies) (or tied or swinged for their fellow researchers’ movement). When we thought we were safe, have puppets sprint behind us until we could team up their heads and crush them. Anyone noticed that in a rather creepy anxiety bet of death, crazy cooperation is needed.
It is this tension and DOUR setup that separates Little Nightmares 3 from other collaborative games, such as the more exciting and vibrant split novel released earlier this year, a roller coaster game-type Flipbook that creates a breathtaking or even coherent experience. In contrast, part of the little nightmare 3 I play is like a series of grim little episodes that rely on their delightful gothic traps, like the gothic traps that progress with your friends (or computer teammates).
The creepy environment of Little Nightmares 3 is more than just a morbid and creepy touch.
Survived nightmare
While I only had an hour of competition, Little Nightmares 3 seemed to iterate rather than stay away from its predecessor: expect more of the same in a new, weird environment, just welcomed the team dynamics of increasing designs. This could be a good thing for fans of the series. Nothing else is like a little nightmare.
I turned on the rain, red and white circus tent tops on the stage where Carnevale played, and I was masked low (someone from Bandai Namco who once played in jumpsuits). The clumsy above us are the cruel factory workers who are seeking escape in Funfair, which quickly becomes sinister as we soon see some hanging up kidnappings as others take turns beating them like Piñata. We entered a room and found a worker in the connected box, which was the subject of the magician’s half saw…it was not a trick because we had to put the two halves out of the window. I tried but did not ignore the tilted guts in the box.
We have to fight wooden puppets as we hide in enemies as much as humans. Like Geppeto’s most terrifying work, they ambushed us in several rooms, asking me to knock the opening with a bow-down bow and escape the beheaded corpse, while my teammates were eager to squeeze their head forward with a wrench alone.
However, most rooms are about solving puzzles, which can be simple, like moving a box for my teammates to jump up and pull the switch or figuring out how the radio plays a complex solution. Although these quiet moments are a nice break with intense battles or hunting, they also give a lot of time to appreciate the creepy background: I ran through a room with a circle of empty tall chairs, only a few seconds later and found them full of puppets, still moving, but looking.
Tensional moments require stealth and communication between players.
Then there are really very tense moments. We moved from Carnival to the adjoining candy factory (where all these savages work, obviously), and then went to the boss’s office to have him play TV in the dark, and his TV in the dark…and his candid ugly baby sits next to him. Naturally, we must make noises, vibrate and open the grate, awaken those horror spawnings that follow us. After many failed escapes, my teammates and I found out that we had to fight for our hiding place after passing the grate.
This is perhaps the most frustrating part of the preview, as we panic about finding solutions to the deadly dilemma (as opposed to slower, organized gameplay) – but it is part of the tension, especially when adding teammates to the mix. Ultimately, it was a difficult lesson of patience. In the next room, a kitchen, the nightmarish baby bumped a bowl on the table until the father walked over to the body (presumably his worker) and cut some meat for his horrible child.
For my brief time, Little Nightmares 3 seems like a weird storybook for collaborations for players and their friends (but sadly, this isn’t an online co-op) to experience. Anyone guessed that it outperformed previous games in the series, especially when the developer super-quality game brought anyone else’s guess. (A similar spiritual sequel to Tarsier and Little Nightmare, resurrectionwill come in 2026. )
But with the air becoming crisp and Halloween waving, it’s the best time for creepy co-op games of the year, like the Little Nightmares 3 landing.
Little Nightmares 3 was released on October 10, 2025 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.
