Little Nightmares III (2025) 👁️🪞
“Welcome to Sad & Friendless: The Game”
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⚠️ Content Warning: disturbing imagery, child trauma themes, body horror, creepy dolls, implied cannibalism, and—perhaps most offensive of all—characters literally named Low and Alone.
Let’s start off with showing y’all the trailers, shall we? 🎥
Ao aftwr playing this game, and having time to think about it. I bet y’all wondering what my take on this game is?
Alright, buckle in. Because this one? Oh, I have thoughts.
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🎭 Non-Spoiler Rundown
So here we are again in the world of Little Nightmares. The first two games gave us iconic grotesque figures (Janitor, Teacher, Thin Man) and surreal, connected environments where every hallway led organically to the next nightmare. And now… in LN3, we’re stuck with two protagonists: Low and Alone.
Yes, those are their names. Low. Alone. The first two games didn’t hit you with names like Sad and Friendless. Six and Mono worked because they were eerie, vague, and left space for interpretation. Low and Alone? That’s like slapping you across the face with a thesaurus labeled Obvious Symbolism for Dummies.
Anyway, the premise: Low wakes up in Nowhere again, chasing the vision of a broken mirror that promises “escape.” He teams up with Alone, his trusty partner, and they journey through disconnected nightmare realms—sand cities, candy factories, creepy carnivals—all under the gaze of the all-seeing Eye. The gimmick this time? Mirrors as portals. Instead of organically exploring, you just teleport from nightmare to nightmare like some twisted Alice in Wonderland.
The vibes are still here. The atmosphere is still drenched in dread. The controls are intact. But the story? Oh boy…
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👥 Character & Monster Rundown
Low (Player 1): Sad little boy who wants out. His name screams “misery.” He feels more like a device than a character.
Alone (Player 2): Supposed partner, keep a note on that because when I say the word supposed, I literally mean that, so keep a note on that.
Monster Baby: A Godzilla-sized infant that petrifies people into stone. Symbolism? Who knows. Scary? Barely. No, really? Why? Why is this thing?We’ve never had gods in a sized creatures. In this game series, this just got absurd in the wrong ways possible.
The Supervisor: Spider-grandma with eight arms running a candy factory. Creepy to play, not deep in design. Like, why why does she have spider arms? Is there any reason? Or is this just one of those cases where it’s like?Well, this looks spooky, so let’s do this.
The Kin: A ventriloquist carnival master with a detachable living hand (Mini-Kin). More goofy than unsettling.
The Overseer: Giant institute warden, basically trauma manifested. Neat in concept, but again—it feels spelled out instead of mysterious.
Compared to LN1 and LN2’s grotesque human distortions, these creatures are cartoonishly random. Less metaphor, more “what if we threw a dart at a horror cliché wall?”
I mean here’s another issue in the previous two games. The so called humans, i’m just gonna call them creatures. Every time they see you, they try to attack you or eat, you pick your poison here in this game.They don’t really do that. The background characters like, for example, in the carnival map.You see the humanoid creatures in the background, and you think they’re going to attack you when they see you nope. They never do.They’re just background props, like you look at them, and it’s like they’re doing some mundane stuff like beating up, other people like ha ha. Ain’t it funny. It’s like this isn’t scary? This is dumb and this doesn’t feel like little nightmares like it. Look, it feels like they they took the skin off of little nightmares and cosplaying as it.
The monster is in the first 2 games. They felt like they hated the sight of you. Like the side of you was just was just terrible to them. They disdained you the monsters in this third game about only 3 of them chase you 3 or 4 of them. It’s like really okay and the rest are just background. Noise and oh yeah, the ones that do chase you. They feel like boss fights these giant enormous boss fights and the problem is they get stuck by stupid pipes and bursting air or steam in front of them. It’s like stupid things that just stop them. It’s like the world Is it fit for them?And i’m wondering, what am I doing here. Like ohh noI can’t chase you because the steam is in front of me. Better run the opposite way. It’s like why why? Why is why is steam the thing that’s stopping you?
Also, more importantly, I never once found these creatures scary. And that’s sad because in the first two games, I found the creatures to be nightmare fuel.
So before I get too far, I want to point out that before this game came out. I was already iffy about it because of the fact that it’s not being made by the same company, instead of Tarsier Studios, day instead moved on and made their own game. That’s coming out next year called Reanimal, and instead Supermassive Games stepped in and took over and I instantly knew or I. Instantly thought this can’t go well.It was just a gut feeling, and i’m sad to say my concerns were correct, because, oh boy, so here’s officially where I stop holding back, because I don’t like this game that much. And from here on out, you will see why.
Now don’t get me wrong Supermassive Games aren’t new the horror they gave us until dawn, which is an amazing game. But it’s a different form of horror compared to little nightmares, which is platform puzzle. Horror, while they dabble, in realistic, choose your own path horror.
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👹 Why the Creature Designs Don’t Work
Here’s the problem: the monsters in LN1 and LN2 meant something.
The Janitor was about predatory adults and blindness to children’s suffering.
The Teacher was a perfect metaphor for oppressive authority figures.
The Thin Man was loneliness, adulthood, and the crushing inevitability of becoming what you fear.
They were grotesque, exaggerated humans—scary because they were rooted in reality. They disturbed you because they felt like twisted versions of people you could meet in the real world.
In LN3? It’s pure exaggeration. To a point of being cartoonishly absurd. Like, here’s some examples of the creatures in this game.
A skyscraper-sized porcelain baby doll. It looks more like a rejected toy concept than a nightmare.
A spider granny with candy? That’s Tim Burton-lite. Creepy to chase, sure, but thematically thin. Again?Why why does she have so many limbs?
The ventriloquist Kin? He’s basically a sideshow gimmick with a detachable hand. Symbolism feels muddled and on-the-nose.
They’re uncanny, yes, but not psychologically disturbing. They feel random, like a grab-bag of horror tropes instead of carefully designed metaphors. And in a franchise built on nightmare logic that mirrors real trauma, that randomness kills the fear. And this core game franchise have been about a nightmare world that mirrors are real life. Here It’s just everything feels like a Tim Burton world.
And once again, these creatures are scary. You just look at them and are like, oh okay, giant kaiju, baby doll, huh?
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🎮 Gameplay & World
Okay, I’ll give credit where credit is due: the gameplay feels like Little Nightmares. Same camera angle. Same tight, tense controls. Same panic when you’re clenching every muscle in your body during a chase. They nailed that part.
Also I do, like the new mechanisms like Low can use a bow and arrow. While Alone uses a wrench. Also, there’s a new mechanism in this game where you grab an umbrella. And you can use that to glide up or down, up using those vent air things and down when you need to go down from a height.
Once you select one of the two characters in them, main menu you both get to work together. You and the a I teammate, you just have to click a button to tell them what to do.And when I mean, click upon to tell them what to do. You just click a button that makes your care to say, hey, which grabs the a i’s attention and has them fo their thing.
But the world design? That’s where it all collapses.
In LN1 & LN2:
You start in one place, progress naturally, and it flows. Prison → Kitchen → Maw. School → Hospital → Signal Tower.
It felt like one giant, lived-in nightmare city.
In LN3:
Beat an area. Jump through a mirror. Suddenly in Candy Land. Beat that. Mirror. Now it’s Carnival Land.
It feels like segmented dream levels. Not cohesive, not fluid. Just a slideshow of nightmare PowerPoint slides.
It kills immersion. And when immersion dies, so does the dread. Where in the first two games, the locations, they felt like they hated you. And you don’t belong there, while here, everything just feels like, Unorganized Dream sequences and keep that in mind for later.
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✅ Positives
The game looks stunning. The environments are creepy as hell, arguably creepier than the monsters. Necropolis sandstorms? Gorgeous.
Gameplay is smooth and familiar. If you loved how LN1/2 played, you’ll feel right at home.
The chase sequences, especially against Spider Grandma, still had me holding my breath.
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❌ Negatives
Names: Low and Alone. Do I even need to keep roasting this?
Monsters lack metaphorical depth. They’re uncanny, but not disturbing.
Mirrors as portals destroy world cohesion.
The omnipresent Eye is way overused. Scary when subtle, cheap when plastered everywhere.
Alone being imaginary is a huge emotional cop-out.
Heavy-handed explanations rob the series of its interpretive magic.
Oh, yeah, and this game was promoted as op but irs only online co-op, no couch play co-op. What is it with games steering away from that? I’m not liking this trend.
Ohh, yeah, and this game feels toned down compared to the other 2 games, it’s a minor complaint, but you will notice. Because, for example, in the second game in the first opening map, where you’re on a island with a hunter, you can find a cage that has a starved dead end in it, yeah there’s no dead kids in this game. Okay, on paper, that sounds so much more better in my head, but my point still stands like, why are we sanitizing this in the third entry?
The collectibles ohh, boy, the collectibles are a downgrade in the first game. You find these little small trinkets that you smash that release the spirit. In the second game, the collectibles are hats that you can wear. But you have to find them, in this game, they collectibles are just small little plushies that you find randomly around. And no, they don’t unlock cosmetics. The cosmetics that you want you have to pay for in a pre order, lovely. So that’s a massive downgrade.
The a I does suck in this game.Like your a I partner like glitches out. Sometimes he would just run around in circles or run off on his own. And sometimes if you do the command to have him do something you can’t do, because you don’t have that ability. He just does not do it or he or she. I mean, depending on who you pick so you have to reload the game. It’s like lucky me.
Also, yeah, this game can be kind of glitchy, like, sometimes the enemies kind of just glitch in place, like they that running and then something stop get in their way that’s invisible, it’s like what’s stopping you? The air?!
Final Thoughts:
Overall, I walked away completely underwhelmed, which is sad because I was looking forward to this game cuz. I loved the first two games. And if we’re gonna get more of these games, and this is the direction we’re going in. I think i’m i’m good. I’m tapping out now, look, this is not the worst game ever. But the problem is, it’s like only good for like one playthrough, it just has no replayability value, once I finally finished playing the game, I was like. Well, i’m done. I’m not gonna come back to this. And that, in itself is a problem.
If any of y’all still want to pick up this game? I recommend waiting until it goes on sale.
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⭐ Final Rating: 5/10
It plays like Little Nightmares, it looks like Little Nightmares, but it doesn’t feel like Little Nightmares. It’s fun once. But the soul, the mystery, the psychological bite? It’s fading.
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⚠️ Spoilers Ahead – You’ve Been Warned ⚠️
Alright. Time to rant.
So the big twist: Alone is not real. She’s a doll Low imagined in his psychiatric trauma cell. You spend the whole game bonding with her—using her abilities, playing co-op—only to be told she’s fake. She literally dissolves, leaving behind goggles and clothes. It’s not sad, it’s infuriating. It cheapens everything you just went through.
And don’t even get me started on what this means for the lore. Is Nowhere a dream? Is all of Little Nightmares now just a dreamscape? Because if so, stakes = gone. In LN1, when Six ate the Nome or Mono became Thin Man, it mattered. Here? Oh, it’s just Low’s bad dream. Great. Thanks.
💤 The Dream Problem
This is maybe the biggest red flag. If LN3 says, “Surprise, it’s all a dream,” then what does that mean for the entire franchise?
Was everything from Six, Mono, the Maw, and the Signal Tower just a dream too?
If yes: that retroactively guts the terror of the first two games. Because why should I care if these worlds don’t even exist?
If no: then why is LN3 suddenly introducing dream logic as the main mechanic? It feels inconsistent and tacked on, like the devs were desperate for a twist.
On top of that, since the character of Alone is an imaginary friend. It takes away from any stakes or impact. It’s like, well, why am I supposed to care about this character? I mean, I picked her because I wanted to play as her. But as soon as I found out the twist I was like, oh well, this is stupid and also it just feels like the game. It just knocks you over the head with it message. Like, get it Low and Alone. It’s like, yeah, I got it. I’m not stupid. It really has all the subtlety of a sludgehammer.
Where, unlike the main character in the second game name Mono, you didn’t know what that meant until the plot twist was revealed that he is the thin man and left alone. And you’re like, wait. Mono means one and he was left alone. I figured it out that gives you replay value cuz. When you play the second game, you can start piecing together. Some hints that might be there, and it gives you a different perspective.
But here it’s like, I figured it out instantly. The character’s name is alone, so I kind of knew that it had to end with the character alone having to be alone! It’s not a creative name.It’s it’s just spending out what the plot twist is right away again. It’s like they don’t understand what made the first two games great, the names needed some subtleties. This game has no subtleties. The name is just, oh, it’s low and alone, and then they act like the plot twist was just some kind of shakespearean writing like, no, it was telegraphed as soon as we found out that one of the main characters’ names is alone! Good job, you spoiled your own plot twist early on!
The first two thrived on ambiguity. You weren’t supposed to know if Nowhere was real or symbolic—you felt it. LN3 tells you outright “eh, maybe it’s just trauma hallucinations.” That’s not scary. That’s lazy.
You know what this feels like.This feels like alice in wonderland the video game by American mcgee, it works there because characters that alice interacts with outside. Wonderland is going to appear in her made up world that makes sense. Doesn’t make sense here, because that’s not supposed to be little nightmares at all. But now everything is just a dream! So I guess it works.
Congratulations, you have open pandora’s box instead of doing what the first two games did, which was showing, and not telling instead. You did the exact opposite. You told us instead of showing, you told us everything you told us a complete story. You have been telling us every single element.Since the start, there is no interpreting anything because you downright just was everything. That’s happened. We now know this is all a dream! So now we know where these monsters come from. They’re based off of characters from the real world! Again, if this is the direction we’re going in, I am jumping off board.
Again show don’t tell, that’s been the appeal of this franchise not tell don’t show. Because again since you did that. Now you’ve all you have done is just given us proof of everything you can proof that does all exist? But it exists in the mind. So it’s like, how long has this been a dream for as this whole franchise been a dream, or are you not just making up lore?
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Final Thoughts 🪞👁️
Little Nightmares III is ambitious but misguided. It swings for new mechanics with mirrors, goes too heavy on explanation, and strips away the eerie subtlety that made the franchise special. It’s still playable, still creepy, still worth one run—but when you’re done, you’ll sit there thinking:
“This was fun… but it wasn’t Little Nightmares.”
Anyways, I hope y’all enjoyed.Today’s review if you do decide to pick up this game. I do recommend waiting until it goes on sale.
