It’s always hard to leave your first child. Uh, that sounds wrong, but let me try to explain. For development teams in the gaming industry, it’s always difficult to let go of projects they’ve worked on for so long, IPs into which they poured their soul, their heart, absolutely everything to bring their strangest and wildest ideas to life. That’s exactly the situation Tarsier Studios found themselves in, the creators of the fantastic IP, Little Nightmares. During the development of the second game, Embracer Group bought them, so they worked on that title knowing it would be the last chapter of this IP they would ever make, and that they would have to move on to new creative adventures, new challenges. The Little Nightmares IP remained in the hands of Bandai Namco, while Tarsier Studios ended up in the Embracer Studios family, a sad farewell for one of the most emotional horror adventures ever made.
The entire community was “mourning” this event, because everyone wanted a continuation, even though Tarsier Studios had clearly said that it was the final chapter of their little nightmares. But Bandai Namco didn’t agree with that, and in collaboration with Supermassive Games, they released Little Nightmares III at the end of last year. We really liked it, but many people… not so much, because it was missing that something, that dark note and creativity that only Tarsier Studios knows how to infuse into their games. Still, Embracer Group didn’t wait long to let this studio create something new, something the same yet different, better, bigger, more bombastic and ambitious than any Little Nightmares to date. And how could the studio that created LN possibly turn down such an opportunity? And so REANIMAL was born, Tarsier Studios’ new horror adventure.
As I already mentioned, REANIMAL is exactly what Little Nightmares 3 should have been, not just a simple sequel to one of the greatest horror adventures, but a true evolution of the formula, or rather a new beginning where the boundaries of everything these titles represented so far are pushed to the limit. Though honestly, I would say it’s more like the final, perfected form of all the unfulfilled, insane, brutal ideas from an incredibly talented studio like Tarsier Studios.
In REANIMAL, you control a sister and brother who are trying to escape from the place they once called home. Along the way, they try to gather their group, children who were left behind just like them. But they don’t go to familiar places to find them; instead, they head to the most unexpected locations, places no child should ever set foot in, let alone adventure through to rescue their friends. And unlike previous Tarsier Studios games, this isn’t only about claustrophobic environments. For the first time, Tarsier Studios decided to open their game up. It doesn’t only happen in abandoned buildings and narrow spaces where children constantly crawl to escape the nightmares chasing them. Now it also takes place on wider, open expanses, and they are simply beautifully crafted. At first glance, they seem open, yet you still don’t have complete freedom to explore them. That linearity is preserved in this title too, but you do get noticeably more space to wander and admire the surroundings.
You begin the game calmly and slowly, out at sea in a small boat, following signal buoys to reach the first place you need to investigate, an abandoned beach and some structure resembling a castle. Every location you come across is at the same time an obstacle on the way to your ultimate goal, and the goal itself… isn’t clear at the beginning. The goal is to escape, to get out of this horror that gradually turns into absolute chaos filled with completely unexpected things and situations. At every location, you’ll find one friend, somewhere locked away, trapped by creatures lurking from the darkness, creatures you must remain invisible to in the shadows. Though that won’t always be easy or simple, because like every nightmare, all these creatures feed on children and other weak, helpless people.
At its core, REANIMAL is a horror adventure with an isometric perspective, but unlike previous Tarsier Studios titles, here you also get changes in viewpoint. Sometimes it feels almost like third-person, sometimes like classic platformers, sometimes with completely free movement across open levels. While adventuring you’ll encounter puzzles and contraptions designed to slow you down. Still, none of these puzzles are hard or overly complicated, they’re there to lightly engage your brain, make you pay attention to details, and simply get your fingers moving a little. The main focus here is on the story, which in this case is delivered to the player not through dialogue or character conversations, but through the environment you’re in at any given moment, through everything you see and everything happening around you. And trust me, it’s all done with incredible emotional weight. On every level you’ll have at least one location that makes you stop and go “Uh… okaaay”, something that won’t leave you indifferent.
REANIMAL is a title that perhaps isn’t claustrophobic in the classic sense of the word like the Little Nightmares games. Here, that isolation, loneliness, suffering, sadness, and misfortune simply envelop you with every next level, because the game was created to transfer exactly those emotions to you, the player. And no matter how spacious and open some levels are, you always have the feeling of being trapped in this brutally disturbed world with no way out. I believe that was the development team’s goal: no matter where you are, that sense of captivity can follow you until you step into some form of freedom, if we can even call the ending that.
The best thing of all is that just when you think you’ve seen everything the game has to offer, the next section comes along and basically slaps you across the face with the scenery, the events, and everything you’re seeing on screen while playing. Literally like the game refuses to let you catch your breath, it shocks you from the very first moment all the way to the last second. Many times I thought, okay that’s enough, I can’t imagine what could possibly come next, and then something completely unexpected, even crazier, more abnormal, more deranged than before. To the point where you stop and say, uh I don’t know if I dare continue. And that’s okay, that discomfort can overwhelm players. Because here it’s not about classic horror that players are used to, but about the shock factor the game delivers with every single step. The feeling that you’re somewhere you simply don’t belong, and that feeling grows stronger and stronger the closer you get to the end. Though those are also the moments when the game literally tells you: this isn’t a place for children, children shouldn’t be part of a world like this. And the best part is that every next scene is completely unpredictable.
The game simply doesn’t give you a moment’s peace, which means it’s never boring at any point. So much happens with every next level that at one moment I wondered, okay I hope they saved something for the next part, if there even is a next part. Because everything I saw and “survived” in this game feels like Tarsier Studios decided to go all-in with this title, and I have to admit, it absolutely paid off.
With every next level, the game introduces a new monster that will hunt you in that level. A monster that must not see you, one you have to hide from, run from, and never let catch and devour you. None of them are the same, not even similar, and they’re unbelievably well made: creepy, disgusting, literally your worst nightmare come to life. Still, the kids in REANIMAL aren’t completely helpless. They’ll often be able to fight back and use everything available to defend themselves. The crowbar you find at the beginning won’t only be used to open barricaded doors, it’ll also let you smash some enemies to survive. Harpoons are meant to help you destroy underwater mines while sailing the small boat to the next level, or to shoot horrors trying to snatch you from the tiny vessel. Arrows you’ll use to disable a monster and escape before it grabs you, and so on… and so increasingly brutal.
The best thing of all is that the game communicates with you through the environment you’re in, just as I already said. Everything is so brilliantly designed that you’ll never have trouble figuring out how to progress. When you find something, it will feel logical what you can do with it. There are no illogical moments or questionable design choices. I said the levels are open, which means you’ll be able to explore a bit more, find other rooms with collectables you can gather: new masks for the kids and so on. That light exploration pays off, because even when you’re exploring, you’re learning something about this world you’re trapped in and the horrors taking place inside it. Practically no corner of any level you’re on will leave you indifferent, every single inch of the map is crafted with such care and so many details that it’s simply unbelievable.
I always thought the best perspective to show something was first-person, but REANIMAL proves that doesn’t have to be true. Even when the kids are running through a wheat field, you can see so many hidden details if the development team decided to put them in, which they clearly did here. Not to mention the interiors that are absolutely packed with detail.
At its core, REANIMAL is a single-player game, and you won’t have any trouble playing it that way from beginning to end, because that’s exactly how I played it. An intimate, brutally honest, creepy, uncomfortable experience from the first to the last minute. That said, the game can also be played in co-op mode, local co-op. And the best thing is that everything you need when playing cooperatively is right there on the screen. No split-screen, no need for a second monitor to solve a puzzle. Even in co-op, the game remains intimate and forces you not to separate from each other, just like a sister and brother never would in circumstances like these. On top of that, there’s also online co-op, and naturally, like any great game, it will have Friend’s Pass support. That means you can survive these horrors together with one more friend, no matter the platform, no matter whether they own the game or not. Just grab their hand and lead them into this incredible adventure.
And one more thing, though I think you’ve already realised the graphics in this game are simply fantastic. Doesn’t matter that this is a “small” game, if I can even call it that. The level of detail is insane, whether you’re at the beginning, middle or end of the game. Every scene is overflowing with incredibly crafted details. On top of that, the lighting contributes enormously to the experience. Whether it’s dynamic shadows or that intense red light that sometimes completely overtakes a scene. Every part is so striking that you’ll be thinking about it long after you stop playing.
The only flaw, if I can even call it a flaw, is that the game is perhaps a little shorter than I had hoped. But on the other hand, this is an adventure about children trying to escape the horror they’ve found themselves in, yet it often feels like they’re heading completely in the wrong direction. The culmination of events in the game is obvious, and you’ll know you’ve reached the end even before it happens, because in those moments “everything goes to hell,” as people say. Still, even that build-up is fantastically done: the closer you get to the ending, the more brutal and uncomfortable everything becomes for the player. But that’s the whole point of this title—to make you think about everything you see and everything you go through with these characters, both during and after playing.
We would like to thank THQ Nordic for providing us with a copy of the game for review purposes.
REANIMAL (Xbox Series X)
Honestly, I didn’t have very high expectations for the REANIMAL title. I thought, ah, just another studio trying to make something new by riding on past glory. And I have to admit I was dead wrong with that assumption. I thought that for this type of game, nothing new could really be done anymore, that all the ideas had already been used up, exhausted. But Tarsier Studios convinced me otherwise so hard, so brutally, and so honestly. REANIMAL is one of the best games of this type, and if a similar game from last year may have disappointed you because it felt like more of the same but slightly different, this one will blow you away. Because it’s so unexpectedly different from everything we’re used to from this studio, even though everything somehow still feels so familiar.
