Little Nightmares 3 creates a palpable tension in the air | Hands-on preview

Having recently had the privilege of Bandai Namco’s hospitality, I’m very glad to say that Little Nightmares 3 is shaping up to be just the dark, dank and terrifyingly tense platformer that I was hoping for from developer Supermassive Games.

For those who lack prior knowledge of the series, the Little Nightmares games see you platforming throughout a 2.5D environment, taking on perilous puzzles and nightmarish creatures, many of whom tower over your diminutive stature. These monstrous beings are often twisted takes on otherwise seemingly normal characters. A victorian schoolteacher with a viper-like neck. A cloth-sack masked hunter with a penchant for children’s blood. A homicidal maniac in chef’s whites. You’ll find all sorts of awful throughout this series and this third entry is looking to continue the tradition of terror.

You’ll play the parts of Low and Alone in Little Nightmares 3, either with an AI controlled partner or in co-op with a friend, each with unique abilities that will need to be utilized to overcome the challenges ahead. Tasked with finding a way out of the Nowhere, you will be tasked with stealthy sneaking and clambering through the visually impressive world of The Necropolis.

This ancient stone fortress sat in an oceanic desert makes use of each character’s toolset, with the raven-masked boy and pigtailed girl each relying on the others abilities to progress through the crumbling halls, dust and debris falling around you. With new abilities to the series, a bow and a spanner, environmental challenges abound. The spanner allows for both practical application on gears and turnstiles as well as good old raw power, smashing through the decaying brickwork.

The bow does pretty much exactly what you’d expect but can also be used for severing ropes to complete puzzles and as a handle for a zipline. You’ll also find other tools littered around such as a tattered umbrella, allowing you and your partner to take to the skies, albeit briefly, to continue your journey across otherwise impassible obstacles.

Creeping through corridors lined with filthy, empty cages, and hessian sacks of crow feathers, there’s a palpable tension in the air, of just waiting for someone (or something) to appear from the inky shadows. There are rusted keys to find, bugs to battle, and some genuinely unsettling tableaux to gawp at whilst working your way through this abandoned metropolis.

Before long, this menace does make a brief appearance or two but in the interest of spoilers, I’ll leave out the details. Suffice to say that I genuinely jumped from my seat at one point (much to my Editor’s amusement) but it wasn’t enough to put off even a scaredy-cat like me, and I was still left wanting more as the demo came to its conclusion.

One quality that really stood out during my time with the demo was the creepy, understated soundtrack, and generally excellent audio. Creaks and groans from shadowy corners, the slow squeak of a gently swaying birdcage, the patter of dust from a stony crevice. There’s a sense of place that this outstanding audio-work truly helps to bolster.

There’s a heavy reliance on teamwork that adds an interesting new twist to the nightmare’s formula, not that it’s ever grown old in my eyes. I’ve always been a big fan of the series and the prospect of working together with a friend to overcome the obstacles ahead sounds like a fantastic addition that I can’t wait to get my teeth into at the earliest possible opportunity.

Little Nightmares 3 is coming to PC and consoles in 2025.