'REANIMAL' Review: Nothing Little About This Nightmare
If you played through either of Tarsier Studios’ previous releases, Little Nightmares or Little Nightmares II, you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect with REANIMAL, the first title from the developer under the THQ Nordic banner. Still, while the overall mood is familiar, the scope of the project feels larger, and there are several steps forward with the gameplay.
As with other similar titles like LIMBO and INSIDE, the story is largely going to be left up to you to interpret. At a macro level, you play as a brother and sister venturing into an unwelcoming world to locate their missing friends. As you progress, you’ll encounter all manner of horrors, some long dead, providing only hints as to what brought them to their gruesome end, while others are very much alive and dangerous.
Unlike other games of this ilk, you aren’t wholly at their mercy in this one. Fairly early on you’ll acquire a crowbar (for the boy) and a knife (for the girl), allowing you to fend off lesser enemies on foot, and a harpoon when you’re on your boat. There are still lots of creatures that can’t be physically confronted, meaning stealth and quick thinking remain your bread and butter, but the inclusion of limited combat allows the game to maintain a freshness across its six or so hours.
Exploration is the central mechanic in REANIMAL, and the game sprinkles in a number of side areas that include collectibles like concept art and additional masks for the kids to wear. If my experience is any indication, many are well hidden. I thought I was quite deliberate in making my way through the world, but when the credits rolled the first time, I’d only found around 60 percent and missed several achievements/trophies as well.
Whether that’s enough to entice gamers to make multiple trips through the game remains to be seen. You have the option to play the roughly six-hour campaign solo or with a co-op partner, locally or online. I played the story to completion alone initially, and I found the AI to be adequate—it got stuck in the environment now and then, though after a short time the sibling respawned and rejoined me. I also logged several hours of co-op time and found it to be enjoyable, though this isn’t a game like It Takes Two where a human companion is needed.
Ultimately, gameplay in general takes a backseat to the world itself, which is the clear star of REANIMAL. Even though the game isn’t appreciably longer than Little Nightmares II, it feels much grander. You start in a boat, and you’ll use bodies of water as the transition between areas, going as far as you can, disembarking, figuring out a way forward, and then returning to the boat.
The story features very limited voice acting and instead leaves it to the player to interpret what’s happening. It has an early- to mid-1900s European aesthetic. There’s a war going on in this world populated by both large humanoids and monsters of various sizes and shapes. It’s a genuinely strange and unsettling place that’s been exquisitely designed from start to finish. The visuals are spectacular, and the character and location design is consistently excellent.
While I’d stop short of calling the game scary outside of a few unexpected moments, it excels at assaulting your senses with the grotesque. Human skin suits slither across the ground in pursuit of a meal. The large humanoids go from moving laboriously on two legs to deftly scurrying on all fours, closing distances with frightening speed. It absolutely crosses into “uncanny valley” territory.
There are many more unpleasant surprises that I won’t even hint at here. This is a game you should go into with as little advanced knowledge as possible. Turn off the lights, put on your headphones, and get sucked into the world.
That’s not to say REANIMAL is without its faults. The fixed camera, while a defensible creative choice based on the tension it builds, can be an issue. It makes it difficult to see things when you’re trying to explore, which is by design, but it can also tip things off. Again, I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll just say there are moments that could have been more impactful if the camera shift didn’t foreshadow that something was about to happen.
It’s also short and has uncertain replay value. The base game will cost you $40, while a Digital Deluxe version adds another $20—that version includes the Season Pass, which promises three additional DLC chapters. I very much enjoy a tightly curated experience like this, but your mileage may vary.
Final Score (8.5/10)
As someone who really liked the style of Tarsier’s two previous games, REANIMAL checked off basically everything on my list for what I hoped to see in its third release. The visuals and sound are great from start to finish, and the care with which it has been created is evident. It makes for a deeply unsettling yet mesmerizing ride that’s well worth taking.