Little Nightmares 3: The First Preview

ign.com:

Sigmund Freud believed that the power of the uncanny came from placing the strange inside something that would otherwise be ordinary. Dolls, wax figures, settings, scenarios, people that are just off. It’s the familiar, but just strange enough to feel wrong, and it makes us anxious. I couldn’t help thinking of the uncanny as I played Little Nightmares 3. A sense of creeping dread pervaded my time with it, but I also found myself compelled to push forward, see more, and unravel the mysteries of its world. It’s a fine line to walk, but during my hour-long play session with the game, Little Nightmares 3 pulled it off, and left me wanting more when the “Thank you for playing” screen informed me my time was done.

Little Nightmares 3 might be the third game in the series, but it’s offering up a lot of franchise firsts. It’s the first game to be developed without series creator Tarsier Studios. Instead, Supermassive Games, the team behind Until Dawn, The Dark Pictures Anthology, and The Quarry is at the helm. Similarly, it is the first entry in the series to feature co-op play and the first to be a standalone sequel. You don’t need to have played the first two Little Nightmares games to understand this one, and as someone who has never played a Little Nightmares game before, I didn’t have much trouble following along.

The first thing I noticed about Little Nightmares was the way it builds atmosphere. It looks gorgeous, but what stood out to me was how it used light and shadow to highlight things you often don’t want to see or obscure things you might want to. Little Nightmares 3 understands that the scariest stuff is often what you can't see, or only get glimpses of, and it's happy to tease you along and build a sense of impending doom before the big reveal.

Then there’s the audio design; Little Nightmares 3 makes great use of environmental sounds and ambient noise to ratchet up the tension. Whether it’s the soft sound of footballs, the heavy machinery of a candy factory