The Little Nightmares franchise is not necessarily a genre-defining, all-time triumph in either platformers or horror games. That said, the desire for a third game in the series was strong enough that, despite the original developers wanting to move on to new things, Bandai Namco Entertainment saw the fan demand and moved the series over to Supermassive Games. There are a lot of reasons to be cautious about the output of a transfer of development like this, but the impression that Little Nightmares 3 leaves is similar to the franchise altogether: Serviceable fun that fails to hit highs you might hope for and expect from exceptional artistic tone.

As Low and Alone, two children in masks, you traverse a world you’re not meant to be in, trying to find your way home. Much of the story involves spoilers, so I don’t want to go too deep into the plot. Still, you are yet again working through an immersive sidescroller horror game with dark, mysterious color palettes and eerie environments. It’s familiar to Little Nightmares fans, and I don’t have any issues with this being of the same vein as the first two games art-wise. In fact, it was fun being back in this sort of nightmare.

Once again, Little Nightmares 3 succeeds where its predecessors did in offering players an atmosphere largely unmatched in other games. We have the Limbo or Inside experiences that really capture what makes this mild horror the vehicle for masterpieces. Neither Little Nightmares nor Little Nightmares 2 reach those peaks, and the third entry does not either. That said, the dual protagonists are fun to play as and experience, and the fact that you can play online co-op with a friend really offers the player a chance to enhance this experience by moving through the world with a friend.

The lack of couch co-op, however, makes Little Nightmares 3 limited in how you can truly maximize your immersion. Without GameChat on Nintendo Switch 2, you’re left to find other ways to chat with your co-op friend online, and adding platforms needed to immerse yourself simply has the opposite effect in my eyes. It’s great to share in the creepiness, but there’s such an easy win here by offering couch co-op, and without it, you’re left wondering how much sweeter this scary tale might be with a friend next to you.

In terms of gameplay elements, co-op is the only one here. You’re essentially getting more of the same, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. In my opinion, Little Nightmares 3 fails to ever hit the ceiling; it feels that it could, thanks to its art style, but due to average gameplay it misses that mark. The platforming is relatively standard, the challenge is pain-free, and the crux of what you’ll get out of Little Nightmares 3 is in how much you buy into putting yourself into the character’s shoes and thinking about just how scary this journey is for them.

I think in any game series, you’re looking for a significant enough change from one game to the next to feel like things are moving forward. Little Nightmares 3 is like marching in place, and even if the overall experience isn’t necessarily getting weaker, your eyes are forward, and you’re left wondering why you aren’t making any progress ahead. There’s hopefully a spin-off that brings a new element to the gameplay mechanics in the future for this series, because I don’t want to see it go away.

Where you might not find a new fright in Little Nightmares 3, you’ll find familiar unsettling moments and plenty of atmosphere worthy of a Halloween season playthrough. There’s not much that makes this series feel like it’s making forward momentum, but the core elements that draw a player’s interest are here and well executed, even if you can’t partner up with someone in the same home. When you don’t move an IP forward, you’re relying on fans to stay put with you. I hope whatever comes next for the Little Nightmares franchise looks to make a bigger statement, because I don’t know if a fourth entry that takes this few risks brings a large player base with it.

A Nintendo Switch 2 review copy of Little Nightmares 3 was provided by Bandai Namco Entertainment for the purposes of this review.

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Little Nightmares 3

$39.99

6.5

Score

6.5/10

Pros

• More of the patented eerie enviornments of the series
• Added co-op option brings a fun new way to experience the game

Cons

• Co-op is limited to online play only
• There's too much of the same beats taking place here
• You're not getting anything you haven't gotten from the past two games in this s