Reanimal preview: A brilliant maturing of the Little Nightmares formula

It came as a surprise when it was revealed that Tarsier Studios wouldn’t be making Little Nightmares III, but it’s clear that the studio is putting everything it’s learnt from the first two instalments to good use. You could be forgiven for perhaps assuming that Reanimal is a simple reskin of Little Nightmares. After all, it does feature a similar premise; in this co-op adventure, a young brother and sister travel through a hellish landscape in pursuit of their missing friends.

That being said, Reanimal, I can attest, does feel like something wholly new. I had the opportunity to sit down with the game’s developers at this year’s Gamescom, going hands-on with around 30-minutes of the game, and it’s left me itching at the prospect of seeing more. Reanimal, like Little Nightmares, manages to walk that fine line of being a horror through and through yet still remaining accessible to a variety of both ages and personally-set spook limits.

And yet, something about Reanimal felt inherently scarier to me, but not in a ‘I’m jumping out my seat way’. It could be due to the fact that unlike Little Nightmares’ fantastical creatures which are well and truly subjects of the imagination, there’s something about Reanimal’s, well, animals that feels more grounded, more real. I mean that in a loose sense. In real life, I’ve not been chased by a spider about 20 times bigger than I am, but these creatures play upon tangible fears, creating an atmosphere that is beautifully unsettling.

Take a look at Renaimal in action below.

You’ll be tasked with platforming throughout this nightmarish landscape which, naturally, will include your fair share of avoiding and outrunning the supersized, mutated animals that reside within it. It’s up to you whether you brave this world alone or with a friend via both local and online co-op. Developers told me that they wanted to recreate the feeling of watching a horror film on the sofa with a family member or friend via the game’s co-op mode, and that certainly felt true as I played alongside two other journalists.

Naturally, there are only two characters playable but even still, as we all sat in the room, developers too, there was a great sense of joy as we all laughed at both each other’s reactions to the various spooks and scares as well as our puzzle-solving thought processes as we took it in turns to play. Please don’t let Reanimal’s co-op nature put you off though if you prefer gaming on your own. You can also play Reanimal alone, with the second character controlled by AI.

I played through around 10-minutes of this format and found it to be just as fun. The AI hangs back, so it’s still totally up to you to figure out what to do next. Playing this way offers its own set of challenges too. In one scene, Reanimal’s brother and sister fall into a room of potatoes. The sister becomes trapped as her foot wedges between the hundreds of tatties. If I was playing co-op, I have no doubt said-player would have alerted me as to their state of peril. As it was, I completely took my eyes off my sister, leaving her to be trampled to death by the pursuing foe in a massive pile of potatoes. That got a laugh from the whole room.

Credit / THQ Nordic

I’m intrigued to see more of Reanimal’s wider world. Developers spoke to me about how they’re excited to play around with notions of choice. For example, you may find yourself traversing a dark space, a light flickering on the horizon. ‘Would you approach it?’ developers posed, ‘Or would you think of it as a trap?’ Reanimal will test your sense of preservation as well as your bravery.

All in all, Reanimal is, based on what I’ve seen so far, beyond what I could hope to see from a Tarsier Studios game. Set in a thrilling new world, Reanimal promises to take us on another unforgettable adventure full of puzzles and spooks. Little Nightmares fans certainly won’t be disappointed, finding instead what feels like a positive evolution of the formula, maturing alongside its audience.

Reanimal remains without a release window but will launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.