Little Nightmares is essentially a terrifying game of hide and seek where failure means instant death. Created by Tarsier Studios, who are usually known for their work together with Media Molecule on family-friendly puzzle platformers Little Big Planet and Tearaway, this step towards the not-so-family-friendly-friendly may seem like a miscalculation, however nothing could be further from the truth.


Definitely not a miscalculation

Little Nightmares takes place on a water vessel known as “The Maw” that serves as both a resort for the wealthy and a prison for children. The world has been beautifully crafted with painstaking attention to detail, whimsical but grotesque, giving strong feelings of a Ghibli film such as Spirited Away. The inhabitants of The Maw are all grossly deformed, barring the children who are kept there from a young age, fattened up and slaughtered to feed the thousands of obese patrons that come aboard to feast (food and eating is a recurring theme throughout the journey).


See these little guys running away from Six here? Cute, right? Hold onto that thought…

You play as Six, a seemingly innocent young girl in a bright yellow raincoat aiming to escape from this Hellish meat-market and its equally-as-Hellish proprietor and main antagonist, The Lady. Six has no way of defending herself against the grabby staff of The Maw, relying on her small size to hide from their clutches. The story contains no actual words leaving the player to interpret what is being seen to understand what is happening, it can be vague but still interesting and captivating. My only complaint (and it is a rather significant complaint) is that it is far too short to the point where you feel like you must have missed some bits.


The Maw is known for its hands-on staff

Little Nightmares is puzzle platformer with stealth mechanics and simple controls. Six can run around, hide (a lot), push things around, and use her lighter to brighten up some dark areas. Controlling Six can be slightly frustrating at times, the controls can be clunky especially when Six needs to react quickly to a situation. Also, the angled perspective the player sees of the environment means that Six often, unknowingly steps off of a ledge and falls to her death. For a puzzle game, the puzzles are not particularly difficult, it only takes a moment to figure out what Six needs to do to escape the current grim room and move onto the next equally grim room. That being said, puzzles are creative and unique.

Little Nightmares’ greatest strength is undoubtedly its appearance. Every single element has had an immense amount of effort and thought put into it, from the characters to the cobwebs. The visuals manage to tell a story without a single word while the art style is a mixture of an illustration out of a children’s story book and a horrorscape straight out of the mind of Del Torro. From this unlikely pairing spawns a unique universe that at one moment chills the player right to the bone with a sense of dread, and the next induce a sense of childlike wonder as you explore the fantastical corridors of The Maw.

What is commendable is that the creators did not rely on horror tropes such as gore or hiding devils in the shadows in order to instil a sense of fear in the player, they instead opted to show off their monsters in plain sight, encouraging the player to look long and hard before moving ahead. Although blood and guts certainly has its place in horror, the direction Little Nightmares took seems more nuanced and captures a creepiness that other horror games seem to lack.

The music accompanying Six on her nearly impossible escape manages to compliment the atmosphere, however it fails to add to it. As we have seen from other horror titles, such as the infamous Silent Hills series, an excellent soundtrack can amplify the mood the story is trying to create as well as make the journey so much more immersive. The soundtrack is adequate but one can’t help but feel it could have been better.



The fantastic tale of Six and her surreal adventure through the uncanny valley is one that will not be forgotten, especially after the startling character development of Six and the haunting ending. The artwork of this game is assuredly one of my all-time favourites, challenging the horror genre to step away from excessive gore and lazy jumpscares. Unfortunately the most damning quality to this piece of art is the meagre length of the game. It is heart-breaking that such a perfectly crafted world with superbly eerie environments and nightmarish characters could have gone that much further and become so much more than it turned out to be.