Little Nightmares III Review: Creepy, Grim, and Beautiful

Little Nightmares III invites players back into a world where innocence meets terror. This time, the familiar darkness has more elements, since the game has 2 characters to collaborate. Developed by Supermassive Games, the torchbearer after Tarsier Studios, the third entry preserves the series’ signature surreal horror while adding a cooperative play detail. The result is an experience that’s visually dazzling and thematically haunting, like all its predecessors.

TL;DR

Little Nightmares III is a magnificent complex of feelings, like all the previous games of the series. Sorrowful, grim, eerie, grotesque, and surreal images mix with the wonderfully dark environment of the Spire as two kids collaborate, trying to find themselves, survive, and keep you on the edge the whole time.

Little Nightmares III: What’s the darkness about

Visually, Little Nightmares III is stunning in the most unsettling sense. Every inch of the world is crafted with grim precision like crooked hallways lit by flickering bulbs, rain-slick rooftops, and grotesque figures that seem to breathe in the dim light, or not really breathe at all. The art direction maintains the claustrophobic perspective of the previous titles, but there’s a greater sense of scale this time.

Each new environment in Little Nightmares III, from the deranged carnival to the eerie wastelands of the Spiral, tells its own story through colour and texture. The new work under Supermassive has sharpened the lighting and shadow interplay, giving the game a painterly but cinematic tone; however, nothing feels that different than you may think. It’s less “cute horror” than the previous games and more an elaborate nightmare rendered in exquisite, disturbing detail. But it still stays cute, especially in comparison to other horror titles.

Sound – Chilly Melodies with Chilling Soundscapes

The sound design remains one of Little Nightmares III’s strongest pillars. The creak of a floorboard, the distant whimper of something unseen, or the off-beat hum of a mechanical monstrosity, which signifies that every noise has purpose. Kudos to the collaboration of the composers and sound designers on that. The minimalist score knows when to swell and when to vanish, leaving silence as the loudest scare. The audio mix is superb with headphones. Footsteps echo unevenly in large spaces, whispers drift just out of comprehension, and moments of silence are always deceptive.

In addition to the prior titles, it felt as if the vastness and size of the sound were really advanced. There is a great difference between the tight spaces that you crawl in, in contrast to the two or three massive areas that you reach. Another fact of Little Nightmares III is that there are some really huge creatures that are messing with you and feel incredibly alive. The movement feels alive and tight with everything around you, like some bizarre puppets that generate an otherworldly feeling. It is of great success to implement something that does not exist and make it get under your skin.

The Plot – Without Spoilers, Of Course…

Little Nightmares III tells its story without dialogue, relying on movement, symbols, and setting to suggest its meaning. You play as Low and Alone, two children trying to escape the Spiral. For those who don’t know, it is a shifting realm where the boundaries between dream, memory, and reality blur. Spiral is a space of deformed creatures, shabby buildings, and rotten souls seeking to destroy anything beautiful, like children’s purity.

Creatures with grotesque faces or sad emotions tend to hunt you. The themes of fear and dependency are stronger here than in the earlier games. Where Little Nightmares II explored corruption and media control, III feels more personal. It’s about trust and the fragile bond between two people trying not to vanish into the dark and survive hardships that were not of their choice.

Their journey takes them across a chain of surreal regions that, for those who have played the previous titles, are really familiar. An abandoned fairground filled with puppets that move and hunt you, a factory echoing with the voices of something creepy, a decaying tower, sewers, an area outside the main spire that we know, and more. Each location in Little Nightmares III acts as both level and metaphor, revealing fragments of who these children were before the Spiral caught them.

Gameplay – Something Old and Something New

The big change in Little Nightmares III is co-op. You can now play online with a friend (or solo with AI), each controlling a different protagonist with unique abilities, Low’s bow and Alone’s wrench. The puzzles are built around these tools, requiring cooperation to open paths, manipulate contraptions, or distract enemies. Of course, there are simple puzzles as well. Move that, trigger the other, or just simply stay there while I move a lever on the other side.

When Little Nightmares III works, it’s delightful. Solving tactile puzzles in sync while something is possibly following or has caught you already. The controls remain serviceable. Overall, it’s a smoother experience than II or I mechanically, but slightly lighter in emotional density. The only thing I personally did not like was a constant vibration on the controller towards the end levels, where “many” things are happening. Other than that, the gameplay was smooth and flawless.

The standard chases around the map are still a thing, requiring you to either hide or flee. Two characters are not bad, nor is it reducing the amount of intensity and fear that many times are the feelings you get through the story. This needs to be mentioned simply because you might feel that with two characters, you are missing parts of the game.

However, this is not the case. Gameplay does not mess with the story in any negative way, while staying narrative, and the collaboration mechanics between the characters are what point out the greater idea and feeling of the game’s theme.

Little Nightmares III: Our Verdict

I really loved the game as I really love the whole IP and its components. You don’t need much to acquire the success and deep feelings that these titles are creating in you, and manage to succeed every time. This time, the general idea of the game is collaboration and trust, once more a major topic to elaborate and visually disturb through the images of two children trying to escape sorrow and violence. Simple yet troubling puzzles change the pace of the game, keeping you at a distance from the haunting images of multi-hand creatures or heads that really try to eat you.

I also like the small details in symbols and items from the previous games, as well as just some simple mechanics, like Low looking at you puzzling before helping you pull a lever, or whispering to you to do something in order to help you overcome the specific part of the level.

Great feelings, plus a bit of frustration and sadness, of course, are what come after finishing the game, which I recommend without a doubt to all the fans of the Little Nightmares series. It is once more creepily visually stunning. In fact, I recommend doing a full replay to all of them. The average duration for its completion is about 7-8 hours, which is really good for a game like this. It doesn’t tire you or overstay its welcome.

At this moment, Little Nightmares III sells for €39,99.

I would like to thank Bandai Namco Europe for letting me dive into the Spire once more and make me rethink life values.