REANIMAL Review
REANIMAL is Tarsier Studios taking everything they learned from Little Nightmares and finally letting it grow up. It’s tighter, meaner, and more focused, while still being approachable if you’re mostly here for vibes, puzzles, and a good scare.
I played REANIMAL on PC, online co-play with my husband, and that setup actually suits the game really well. The fixed camera and tighter environments can get a bit chaotic with two people, but having someone else there to react, point things out, and panic during chases adds a lot. We did run into a bug or two (mostly odd checkpoint behavior and a small scripting hiccup) but compared to the minefield that was our time with Little Nightmares 3, this was a breeze. Nothing we hit forced a restart or killed our momentum; it was more “mild annoyance” than “throw the controller at the screen.”
You control a girl and a boy moving through a world that already feels past the point of saving. The game gives you just enough context—missing friends, a broken city, hints of something terrible that’s already happened—but it never dumps lore on you. Most of the story comes through level design, small environmental details, and a handful of short dialogues rather than cutscene monologues. If you like connecting the dots yourself and arguing about theories later, this approach really works.
What I appreciated is how quickly REANIMAL shakes off the Little Nightmares clone label. The shift from giant grotesque adults to twisted animals and discarded skins changes the tone a lot. It still feels like something from Tarsier, but not a rerun of their previous work.
On the gameplay side, REANIMAL is straightforward in a good way. You’re sneaking, running, solving environmental puzzles, and occasionally standing your ground instead of just legging it. Early on, both kids pick up weapons, and later the boat sections add a light layer of navigation and combat like harpooning mines, dealing with creatures in the water, and scanning the fog for danger. It never turns into a full action game, but having those tools breaks up the constant helplessness and gives encounters more texture.
Puzzles mostly sit in that “look around and think for a second” zone. The solutions are usually readable if you pay attention, and the game doesn’t clutter everything with obvious hints. The hardest part, if you and your co-op partner have different styles of playing, is deciding how you tackle the problem without killing each other... I call this free couples Therapy. There are a few bits that feel closer to trial and error—especially where timing and physics have to line up just right—but they’re speed bumps, not walls.
Because we played online co-op, I got the “intended” experience, and it’s fun…but also a little underused. There are good moments where both players need to coordinate, but there aren’t as many “this could only work in co-op” puzzles as I expected, where as games like Split Fiction REQUIRE you and your partner to work together... When I tested solo briefly, the AI handled itself well enough that I didn’t feel like I was babysitting a mannequin. So the co-op is more about sharing the experience and the tension than fundamentally changing how the game plays.
If you’re here for mood, REANIMAL delivers. The lighting, fog, and camera work keep the tension up without leaning on constant jump scares, and each area has its own visual identity while still feeling part of the same ruined world. Creature design is consistently uncomfortable to look at in the best way... Every encounter feels deliberate rather than just “here’s another monster and jumpscare.”
The game is short: Around 4–6 hours for a first run, depending on how thorough you are and how long puzzles take you. For me, that length fits what REANIMAL is trying to do. It hits hard, doesn’t drag, and then gets out. There are collectibles and an extra scene to chase if you want an excuse to go back in, but it’s not pretending to be a 20-hour epic.
Verdict
REANIMAL feels like the natural evolution of the Little Nightmares formula instead of a safe repeat. The co-op has untapped potential and a couple of puzzles lean a bit too much on trial and error, but the atmosphere, pacing, and overall confidence in what it’s doing more than make up for it. Playing on PC in online co-play, with only a couple of minor bugs, was a genuinely smooth experience... Especially compared to the rollercoaster that was Little Nightmares 3.
If you like compact, moody horror platformers and you’re okay with a shorter runtime, I’d absolutely recommend it, whether you’re a longtime Tarsier fan or just horror-curious and looking for something you can finish in a weekend.
