I Did Not Expect The Little Nightmares Games To Be Some Of The Creepiest I’ve Ever Played

As a huge fan of horror games, I’m certainly not squeamish. The more monstrous the better, that’s my motto. The thing is, though, more monstrous doesn’t necessarily mean bigger, toothier, and less human. It can sometimes mean precisely the opposite.

Take Darkest Dungeon. It’s known for its excellent sanity system, and for its iconic opening cutscene. Near the end, we see the humongous, cavern-filling flesh-horror that lurks down there in the depths, from which the Ancestor quite understandably ran howling. There’s nothing remotely human-like about that abomination. Terrifying as it is, it doesn’t quite hit the same spot for me that some other horror villains (and other enemies within that very game and others like it) do.

The horror villains that I find most disturbing aren’t those that are great slathering monsters, but that are at least recognizably human in origin. The Resident Evil series does this super well, with everything from its standard-issue zombies to the infamous Regenerators and even Nemesis.

There’s the layer of tragedy that humans were pitilessly experimented on to make them ‘monsters’ (see also: Lisa Trevor), and perhaps something even deeper than that too. In the Little Nightmares series, we’re presented with human characters that are altered or exaggerated, and I find the effect more disturbing than any number of demons or other Lovecraftian horrors.

The original game launched in April 2017, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. By the time I completed the second game, the series had burrowed into my mind like the ghastly little parasite from Baldur’s Gate 3. There’s no extracting it now, friends. Severing the Janitor’s long, grasping arms with that slamming door was a grisly moment, and one of the original’s first big, impactful ones.

It cemented one thing in my mind: The game’s boss battles, unconventional as they are, would be truly haunting setpieces. From being chased through hallways by a ravenous group of Guests to desperately evading the Twin Chefs in the Maw’s kitchen, I felt an intense pressure to solve the visual puzzles quickly (experiencing many game overs as I did so, because puzzles aren’t my strong suit).

Along the way, I could never escape that feeling of being hunted by something much larger than myself, with no weapons but the tools that were available in that particular environment. The most unsettling thing about all those pursuers is that they are distorted visions of humans.

Nightmares Indeed

I’ve long been fascinated by the idea of the uncanny valley, and the frequency with which ventriloquists’ dummies, dolls and such are used in horror. Little Nightmares does a wonderfully horrifying job of twisting the everyday and the mundane into something deeply sinister.

The school in the second game, with the porcelain doll bullies and the hideous teacher with the extendo-neck, is the most disturbing example of all in my book. The bullies, for once, aren’t much larger than the main characters themselves, but they frequently appear in groups. It just makes you feel more isolated and under threat, and by this point in the series, we really don’t need any more help in either regard.

Our powerlessness is underscored again through the limited use of the unwieldy weapon we have to keep them at bay. Most of the time, we’re a tiny character in a huge environment, facing foes that tower over us. We’re constantly reminded of this, in a completely wordless way, by the fact that a lot of the platforming revolves around climbing furniture and such.

We’ve no choice but to keep moving, typically from left to right, and as we do, more and more of the horrors of our situation unfold. Implications about the Maw, the Janitor’s motives in capturing his victims and the meat that the chefs were preparing continued to form in my mind as I saw more, and none of it was remotely okay.

Similarly, in the second game, I started to get an inkling about the origins of The Thin Man (cosplay Slender Man), a creeping dread that proved correct to an extent.

Cliched jump scares are very thin on the ground in Little Nightmares, but the developers absolutely have ways to give me a jolt when they want to.Six hungrily pouncing on the Nome got an involuntary yell out of me, and I almost let out another at the end of the Secrets of the Maw DLC when I learned that Sausage Nome (my name for the poor soul) was actually the Runaway Kid.

Those poor Nomes.

As the second game wrapped up, Six’s transformation and letting Mono fall into the chasm got me yet again. It’s all done so cleverly, with nary a line of dialogue being spoken, with plot twists and subtle hints and clues provided throughout. I couldn’t get enough. It’s hide and seek horror at its best.

I haven’t played Little Nightmares 3 yet, as it’s waiting for me at the end of Spooktober. Nervous as I was about the fact that the game wasn’t made by Tarsier, I’m going to savor another dose of Little Nightmares regardless. There’s nothing else that quite hits the same notes for me, though there are some great games with a similar vibe.