I’ve always felt like games, more so than any other medium, are uniquely qualified to capture the feeling of a nightmare. There’s something about players all buying into the shared language of a video game that allows us to not only believe it when characters make wild leaps of dream logic to solve problems, but also does so by forcing us to be participants in it. Instead of screaming at the screen, “Don’t go in there, it’s dangerous,” we are pushing forward on the joystick and entering it ourselves.
REANIMAL, the latest game from Little Nightmares originators Tarsier Studios, captures this feeling perfectly, making you a participant in a surreal story of survival that grabs you on a primal level, if not an intellectual one.
As someone who wasn’t really into 2D platformers, I never checked out the Little Nightmares games, but from what I can tell, REANIMAL feels like a natural progression of their style, once again casting you as children placed in horrific situations, pursued by uncanny creatures. You play as a sister and brother trying to safely make their way off an island full of horrors, while trying to rescue their lost friends along the way. That’s about as much as you’re going to get plot-wise off the bat, and frankly, that’s enough to drive the action, thanks to the incredible style with which Tarsier presents the game.
Moving past the 2.5D perspective of the Little Nightmares series, REANIMAL allows players to navigate the world in full 3D with a dynamic camera, not just in single player, but two-player co-op as well. Mostly focused on light puzzle solving, platforming, and tense stealth, your set of player verbs isn’t the most robust, but it’s not aiming to be mechanically complex. Puzzles are predominantly exploration-based, forcing you to search the world for switches or items that will allow you to progress.
To take advantage of the co-op possibilities, there are instances where each character has to do a specific task at the same time, but it’s often not elaborate enough to really make its inclusion feel completely necessary. I played the game solo, and the AI companion was pretty easy to order around, often just moving into place on its own when needed. I’m glad they didn’t go as far as games like It Takes Two or Split Fiction in requiring a second player, but I do wish that if they were going to include co-op, it felt a bit more integral. There were some moments that made me get what they were going for with the concept, but those puzzles were few and far between.
Most of the game feels pretty linear, with a few branching areas you can explore. This generally means that the way forward is often pretty obvious, usually highlighted by the game’s excellent lighting, and the puzzles are all pretty close to their solutions. This simplicity does help keep you moving through the world at a great pace, moving you from one horror to another, but this means that when it breaks down, everything comes crashing to a halt. There were more than a few times in the game that I couldn’t tell what it was asking of me, often exacerbated by the camera being pulled back a bit too far or the area being too dark, obscuring what I was supposed to be doing. Way too often, I found that the thing that was blocking my progress was just “I didn’t see a hole in the wall,” which felt pretty frustrating.
Thankfully, even if you’re getting lost and turned around in an area, it’s always going to look stunning. Right from the opening boat ride, the gloomy atmosphere permeated every second, constantly surprising me with its horrifying beauty. The way it plays with lighting goes far beyond just guiding the player, setting a perfectly eerie mood with its use of shadow. Tarsier has a mastery of color, knowing exactly when to inject some color into the grey palette for maximum effect. There were times I died in the game, not because it was challenging, but because I stopped in my tracks to try to get the perfect screenshot.
The locations you explore are nothing overly special, but they all feel off-kilter in a good way due to your perspective as a child. Things feel just a little bit bigger than normal thanks to your small stature, making the monsters feel even more imposing. My favorite locations of the bunch were an old abandoned theater, complete with a crumbling old school marquee, and a farm that felt peaceful upon approach before shattering that peace with another tense sequence.
It can’t be stressed enough how much of the mood and presentation is enhanced by camera work that feels truly cinematic, elevating the already gorgeous tableaus. It knows exactly when to zoom out to emphasize the scale of a new area or zoom in when a scene gets more intimate. You can adjust it slightly with the joystick, but for the most part, it swoops and turns as needed on its own for maximum impact.
Based on what I’ve seen of Little Nightmares, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the creature design in the game is top notch. I don’t want to spoil too many of them, since coming across them is half the fun, but the first one to really make my hair stand on end was a repeated creature early on that looked like a flattened out human corpse and moved like a snake. Later, there was an unnaturally tall man, who acts as the main antagonist of the first section, who was casually ironing one of these creatures like it was his laundry. It’s a perfect use of that surreal, dreamlogic feel that I was talking about earlier.
Since you play as children, most of the time you’re relying on stealth to get around creatures, which works well to build tension. Levels are laid out well enough that there are clear paths to take to stay hidden, but still require you to time them appropriately when enemies aren’t looking. Later in the game, you do find yourself with some tools to fight back with melee weapons or thrown objects, but it’s never to a point where you feel like you’re drastically overpowering the enemy.
At key points in the game, there are scripted sequences where you get spotted and lead the enemies on a desperate chase, and these always feel great. This is when the camerawork shines the most, making everything feel thrilling and cinematic for these climactic moments. The game also changes from its normally muted score to something more rousing and exciting, pushing the presentation even further.
While I very much enjoyed the visual style and surreal storytelling, I did feel a little underwhelmed by the end of the slightly-too-short campaign, which clocked in between five and six hours. There were a couple neat moments near the conclusion, but it left me wanting more – more character, more lore, more vibes. Looking at the trophies afterwards, it was clear that there are many secrets hidden throughout the game that make me want to go back for another playthrough. I found several masks, which can be worn by either character, and posters, which unlock concept art, but turns out I only collected about a third of them, so there’s more work to be done. One of the trophies also hinted that there’s another ending to the game, and I’m intrigued to see if that changes how I feel about the wrap up.
REANIMAL acted as a perfect introduction to Tarsier’s brand of nightmare-logic horror. The surreal story was presented perfectly with a combination of dreadfully moody artstyle and extremely cinematic presentation. While its mechanical simplicity allowed you to be immersed in the tone of the game, I do wish I wouldn’t have run into so many points of frustration where the way forward was obscured by a too dark room or an overly zoomed out camera. There were definitely more twists to the gameplay formula than I expected, but I wish the puzzle complexity would have more consistently risen above “put the thing in the thing.”
Despite my reservations, there are definitely moments that will stick with me long after the credits rolled, calling me back to revisit its harrowing and bleak world.
Review code provided by publisher. REANIMAL launches February 13 for PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and the Nintendo Switch 2.
