I may just be a big softie, but ever since I got wind of Little Nightmares’ impending release, I’ve been genuinely psyched that its mighty protagonist is basically someone’s pint-sized, nine-year-old kid sister. The main character is a tenacious little girl. Now take my hand -we're about to step into the shadows. It's starkly mature in its depiction of certain realistic terrors and might not be a wholesome experience for anyone with an overactive imagination. And by the way, this is a game about a kid, but despite my post's facetious headline, I'd strongly advise against letting kids play. So in the spirit of my unabashed love for everything horror, I thought I’d scare up a list of why Little Nightmares screams all the right bone-chilling notes, how it perfectly impales all those unsettling nuances. Think clinically depressed Tim Burton combined with early American Horror Story, especially those delightfully unnerving intro sequences. Kids have been placed in serious danger within the confines of other macabre titles like Playdead’s Limbo and Inside, but this here, this is a new breed of grim. Tarsier Studios seems to have asked the question, “What’s the worst possible situation we could put a starving child into?” then built a stealth horror puzzle-platformer around the awful answer.
Even so, the original sentiment still rings true-without a doubt, this is one disturbing game, and I loved every grisly moment of it.