Despite my love of the horror genre, there is one franchise that has eluded my attention: Little Nightmares. Not that I specifically tried to avoid it, mind you, I just never really had a reason to get into it. While the aesthetic looked interesting, the pulled-back camera perspective and simplified gameplay didn’t appeal to me as much as traditional survival horror games. So, when I first heard about REANIMAL, a new game made by Tarsier Studios, I wasn’t really sure what to expect.
REANIMAL is a brand new IP from the original creators of the first two entries in the Little Nightmares franchise. It features a new world, new characters, and a new style that completely differentiates itself from its spiritual predecessor. It boasts a full couch and online co-op, terrifying scares, an intriguing narrative, and an emphasis on exploration. How does it live up to all of these promises? While REANIMAL does suffer from some issues with the presentation, the narrative, gameplay, and art direction are more than enough to make it a treat for horror fans and newcomers alike.
The Depths of Depravity
REANIMAL‘s story isn’t as overt as other entries in the genre. It doesn’t feature much dialogue or cutscenes, and instead focuses on a more subtle approach. You take control of a young boy and girl, who embark on a journey to find their lost friends. However, said friends have been taken by horrible, misshapen creatures. Some resemble humans while others resemble animals, but either way, both spell danger for these young children.
We don’t know much about the connection that these kids have to each other. The store page claims that the boy and girl are siblings, but there is no indication of that in the narrative itself. The characters do talk to each other, but very rarely. While this may be a bad thing in other games, here, it works to really emphasize the atmosphere and more subtle details that you start to notice as the game continues.
The world of REANIMAL is dark, both literally and figuratively. It’s hard to place what happened in this world, but you find evidence of a war that is still ongoing that ravaged the Earth. You navigate through destroyed buildings, find corpses strewn about on trees, and see flashing lights and hear the sounds of cannon fire in the distance. Of course, there are the monsters of this world.
Some mysterious organization seems to have experimented on animals to create terrible monsters, as you find deformed birds, pigs, spiders, and lambs scattered across the world. One of my favorite moments in the entire game came from this design choice. At one point, you enter a farm with a massive legion of pigs all standing passively. As you reach the back of the farm, you see a giant pig eating the others. He turns to you and, against all odds, opens his mouth to say one word: “Leave.” This moment got a genuine chill out of me. Trying to unravel these mysteries is one of the greatest pleasures of playing REANIMAL.
The reason the atmosphere is so well-executed is because of how brilliant the presentation is. The game looks gorgeous, with each element of the world being realized in beautiful detail. There are great moments where you can see great towers in the distance, whether it’s a hotel, a school, or a lighthouse, and you can just see the wear and tear it has suffered in the aftermath of this war. The perspective really does a great job of highlighting the beauty of the world.
However, the pulled-back perspective does have some major flaws when it comes to exploration. With how far back the camera goes, it’s often really hard to discern details or figure out where you are in relation to the map. For instance, there are times when the interactive button prompt is completely obscured, leading to me having to wander around aimlessly as I try to work out where to go next. While the perspective did contribute to the overall atmosphere, it really detracted from the gameplay.
The music is also more focused on ambience rather than easily hummable melodies, which does work to the game’s advantage as it contributes to the dread-filled atmosphere of the overall game. While I do wish that there was a more memorable soundtrack, as some of my favorite games in the genre have some absolutely beautiful scores, I was often so focused on the stunning visuals and intriguing worldbuilding that I never really noticed it.
Overall, subtlety is the keyword at the heart of REANIMAL. Rather than going for an overtly cinematic story with dialogue and a clear arc for its characters, it instead focuses on building out the world through details that you may completely miss on your first playthrough. Even the ending is extremely confusing at first, but it does leave the promise of a secret ending if you choose to play again. However, even though the gameplay is enjoyable, some of the aforementioned challenges of exploration make the prospect of replaying REANIMAL seem quite intimidating.
Traversing the Darkness
REANIMAL‘s gameplay is a huge mixed bag. There are some absolutely brilliant setpieces that are slightly offset by the frustrations of figuring out where to go next. Let’s start with the former. This game is absolutely horrifying from beginning to end. Rather than emphasizing jumpscares or gore, REANIMAL instead places you in situations where you are directly confronted by the most horrible-looking monsters you’ve ever seen in daring chases.
Each monster you encounter demands a different approach to surpass it. The creepy man at the beginning, for example, will require you to use stealth. The weird skeleton horse you find later will need you to find a heavy weapon in order to destroy it. Oftentimes, figuring these approaches out feels natural and not too obtuse. It helps that the chases themselves are deeply thrilling, with the aforementioned horse creature being one of my favorites in the entire game for just how tense it made me.
Along your journey, you will find new masks to place atop your main two characters. These masks don’t add any gameplay enhancements or adjustments, and are rather minor changes to the design of your character. I do kind of wish there were more to these elements, but there is a fun collectible that gives you more of an incentive to explore around the world.
Speaking of the main two characters, unlike the first two Little Nightmares, REANIMAL offers both couch and online co-op. While I personally didn’t get a chance to try this out for myself, I did appreciate the option. Further, the few elements that require you to use your partner, whether you’re playing solo or with a friend, are fairly enjoyable. One of my favorite challenges was figuring out how to cross two different bridges at the same time while connected by a rope, as the AI and I tried not to trip each other over.
While the game leans more towards “horror” rather than “survival,” there are still some minor combat mechanics. Fairly early on, you’ll get access to a crowbar you can use to hold your own against the rare few enemies you have a fighting chance against, such as birds and other small children. More notably is the tools you get to defend yourself on your main method of transportation, a small boat. Here, you get a set of harpoons to help clear mines and stop any approaching monsters.
The boat is your main way of getting from point A to point B throughout the game. It’s a cool mechanic, which adds to some of the most atmospheric sections in all of REANIMAL. However, this is where the exploration issues start to come back into play once again. A lot of times, whether you’re walking on foot or traveling via boat, it is really hard to figure out where you need to go next.
One of the most frustrating examples of this is an area where you need to aim a giant cannon towards something in order to progress. However, it’s really hard to figure out what that something is. It took me flailing around for over half an hour to find out what my target needed to be, and once I did, I ended up missing multiple times because of just how small it was. While I am glad that there aren’t any waypoints or anything super overt like that, I do wish there were more of a clear indication of where to go next and how to progress.
Another major issue with the gameplay is the occasional instances of glitches. While there weren’t too many of these that popped up, the ones that did were enough to completely halt my experience. At one point, REANIMAL completely crashed, and at another, it hard froze my game and almost did the same to my console. There were also some strange physics glitches with a puzzle centered around a car later in the game.
REANIMAL‘s gameplay sometimes suffers from the same issues as its presentation. Both the camera perspective and lack of direction contribute to a frustrating experience when exploring, which is a required element of progression. While I did soon realize that there was an unknown collectible required to get the secret ending, and I did end up collecting 2, I had no way of knowing how close that got me to getting said ending. Maybe these issues would be mitigated if I were playing with someone else. With all that being said, though, REANIMAL still succeeds in adding a new layer of fear to the horror genre.
Understated Terror
In the last few years, the horror genre has gone from one that I thought was relatively interesting to one that is my absolute favorite. Part of this is due to how unique each horror game of the last few years has been, as they have all managed to deliver drastically different yet fun experiences, despite taking the genre in new directions. While some horror games emphasize action and survival elements, some instead choose to deliver a more understated experience. REANIMAL is one such example of the latter.
REANIMAL uses a more subtle approach to its storytelling, presentation, and gameplay to great effect. It trades dialogue and cutscenes for worldbuilding and hidden details. The presentation opts for a gothic and grotesque style rather than the heightened realism of others. Finally, the gameplay focuses more on exploration rather than combat.
These elements all coalesce to make a game that is absolutely horrifying from beginning to end because of how it builds tension, rather than surprising you with a cheap jumpscare. I can confidently say that some of the monsters in the late game had me more unnerved than certain ones I’ve seen in other entries in the genre.
Even still, these design choices suffer from some pretty big issues. The act of exploration often feels more obtuse and frustrating than it needs to be, and the few bugs are enough to slightly pull you out of the experience. Furthermore, the subtle approach to the narrative won’t be for everyone, as some may prefer to have a clearer arc with a proper conclusion, rather than one that is only wrapped up via a secret ending.
However, if you are willing to look past these issues and you’re someone who is a huge fan of either Little Nightmares or the overall horror genre, then REANIMAL is a must-play. Regardless of whether you play it by yourself or with a friend, you’re bound to have a fun time exploring the dark depths of this terrifying world. As for me, I’m really looking forward to seeing how people interpret the story and decipher all of the game’s secrets as I wait to replay the game one more time.
Disclaimer: THQ Nordic provided Final Weapon with a PlayStation 5 copy of REANIMAL for review purposes.
