I was really fond of REANIMAL when I first played it earlier this year. Despite my lack of experience with the Little Nightmares games, I still enjoyed its subtle storytelling and atmospheric visuals, even if I sometimes found the gameplay lacking due to the pulled-back camera. When I found out that DLC would be released and expand the game’s world, I was pretty interested to see what it would bring. With the release of the first of three DLCs for REANIMAL, The Prisoner, now available, I can say that the post-launch content for the horror game is off to a great start, even if the short runtime is a major low point.
The DLC focuses on two new characters: the Soldier and the Prisoner. Much like with the protagonists of the base game, their backstories are ambiguous. Unlike those characters, however, the Soldier and Prisoner are thrown right in the midst of the war-torn conflict that their predecessors only saw in the late game. The expansion opens with both of them dropping from a plane into the battlefield, an incredible setpiece that highlights the vastly different tone. Together, they must find a way to escape the carnage, avoiding the mindless soldiers as they do so, and survive by any means necessary.
The premise for The Prisoner is immediately compelling. One of my favorite parts of the original game was in the latter half, where the desperate dash to avoid mutant animals transitions to the panicked evasion of snipers and tanks. The DLC continues the subtle approach to storytelling, with very little dialogue or background information that contextualizes what you are experiencing. Instead, you are forced to rely on the context clues that the world provides you, such as bombs falling from the sky and the flamethrower-wielding soldier hot on your tail.
The tension of the base game has also been left intact, even heightened in some spots. I was consistently at the edge of my seat in every encounter throughout gameplay. The early sections in particular, where you are being chased by the flamethrower soldier, had my blood pumping. When he appears, you have to scramble through a derelict building that he burns down as he chases you, then hide in an oven as he walks right past you. This leads to a mini-boss fight where you and your co-op partner have to outmaneuver him, which is absolutely thrilling despite the short duration of the fight.
From a gameplay standpoint, The Prisoner DLC also offers many new mechanics to further differentiate it from the original REANIMAL experience. One of the biggest examples of this is when you get a Polaroid camera, which initially helps to create fast travel points from bloated gray corpses (in a truly disgusting visual). Later on, they freeze the odd ice children that serve as obstacles in your path. They can quickly kill you if you are not careful, so you need to use the camera so that your partner can knock them down with an axe. In addition, there is even a great section where you use a motorcycle. Overall, The Prisoner does a great job of offering a different experience from the main game, despite its short runtime.
That short runtime, though, is easily the biggest problem with the DLC. It is approximately an hour long at the most, and ends without resolving any of the narrative threads that have been set up. This is because it is meant to be part 1 of 3 DLCs that will release at a later date. While the idea of a new story that will continue in future DLCs and expand the world of REANIMAL is good in theory, it does mean that on its own, The Prisoner is unsatisfying. Plus, all the gameplay segments and moments of atmospheric tension only get a few minutes at most to shine and conclude right as things are getting interesting. The aforementioned motorcycle sequence suffers especially from this problem, as you barely get three minutes to get used to this great setpiece, where you are driving through a highway and shooting enemies with your turret, before it just stops.
REANIMAL: The Prisoner does its job in getting me excited to see where the story goes in future DLC releases. The new gameplay mechanics are thrilling, thanks to the increased tension of certain encounters. Further, the overall atmosphere is fantastic, and the narrative threads it sets up are really interesting. Sadly, as a $10 DLC on its own, without the payoff that the other two DLCs will offer, The Prisoner does not feel satisfying.
By the end, I felt more upset at the conclusion rather than interested in how the narrative progresses. I think it would be better to wait for the final entry in the trilogy before purchasing The Prisoner. That way, you will get the entire story as a complete package. As it is now, I feel like I have only gotten a small piece of what is to come, and while I love how it all comes together, I cannot help but feel a little disappointed.
Disclaimer: THQ Nordic provided a PlayStation 5 copy of REANIMAL for review purposes.
