Reanimal Hands-On Preview: The natural evolution of Little Nightmares

If, like me, you thought Little Nightmares 3 was an underwhelming take on the future of the series, I have good news. The series' original developers, Tarsier Studios, will soon be offering their take on how the formula they pioneered - inspired by Playdead - can evolve. And judging from the 30-minute Steam Next Fest demo I recently played, they're well positioned to deliver one of the best horror games of next year.

You don't have to spend much time in the world of Reanimal to realise it's from the same developer as Little Nightmares. Like that series, you take on the role of a small, masked child in a scary world filled with big adults who mean you harm. You solve manageable puzzles, sneaking past hazards before inevitably having to make a run for it in frantic escape sequences.

But Reanimal also offers plenty of new features that make it feel different. For example, the demo (and apparently the full game too) starts in a boat that you (The Boy) have full control over. You sail between glowing buoys until you see a body floating lifelessly in the dark water. You pull it out, administer CPR, and when you manage to bring the girl (simply called The Girl) back to life. The Girl can be controlled by another player. And while Little Nightmares 3 was first with co-op, it's new to Tarsier, and Reanimal also offers local co-op. Yes please! The other new feature is that the characters talk. Not much admittedly, but they do talk. In the demo it was limited to a few sentences, but it will be interesting to see if this change will result in noticeably more direct storytelling.

In the boat, the two children sail towards a crevice in a gigantic vertical rock wall. In the canyon behind the crevice, pieces of rock sprinkle down, and at the exit, mines almost block the way out. Hospitable it is not. On the other hand, it is visually impressive with an atmosphere so thick that even a Japanese chef's knife would have a tough job cutting through. On land, I explore some kind of factory production halls, toilets and sewers. It's dirty and oppressive in just the right way and feels quite differently creepy and threatening than Little Nightmares 3's far more clean-cut environments.

However, the most impressive development - and a major contributor to the excellent atmosphere - is the new cinematic camera. Little Nightmares games have always used a side-scrolling perspective, where you could often also move in depth. Classic 2.5D. Reanimals' camera is much more free and in near-constant motion. It looks brilliant, for one thing, and also reduces the awkward judgement of depth that has always plagued Little Nightmares. I'm already looking forward to seeing what Tarsier can do with it in the set pieces we've seen glimpses of in the trailers.

While searching the echoing factory halls, it turns out that our protagonists have a mission. They are looking for a third child, Hood, who doesn't immediately want to come with them. Their search for Hood takes them from the factory to a railway yard where we meet the demo's monster, a classic humanoid clay-like creature called Sniffer. In appearance and behaviour he's a little closer to the classic Little Nightmares enemies than I'd hoped for, but as the trailers have proven, there are thankfully far more outrageous monsters to escape from.

Apart from Sniffer's overly familiar design, the only other thing I can find to complain about is a slightly obscure solution to an easy puzzle where kids find a key by using a toilet plunger on a toilet, after which a (very thin) corpse pops open and the key comes out of the corpse. Nothing about the puzzle was difficult, but it felt illogical, which took me out of the experience.

In other words, we're in the absolute minutiae department. Reanimals' first half hour masterfully builds the atmosphere and the new additions like the boat and camera make me impatient to find out how Tarsier can develop their brilliant signature style. And as explosive as the latest trailer in particular is, 2026 can't come fast enough.