The Little Nightmares series has built its reputation on the theme of 'childhood fears'. It’s a franchise that perfectly distils the kind of irrational terror a child might conjure, mixed with a dash of innocent cruelty. Its distinct art style and narrative progression have earned it plenty of praise over the years.

The latest entry, Little Nightmares 3, launched on the 10th. If you were a veteran of the previous games and sprinted purely for the finish line, you could technically rattle through it in four hours. I spent about five hours with it. Naturally, I expected to see the end credits, but alas, I was stonewalled right on the threshold of the finale.

Little Nightmares 3 marks the first time the series features two simultaneous protagonists. While the previous game had 'Six' assisting the player, this title feels explicitly designed for co-op. The gameplay remains familiar: navigating the eerie 'Spiral', avoiding grotesque monsters, and solving puzzles to escape.

True to the series' roots, the atmosphere of each chapter is a standout feature. Chapter 1 takes you to the Necropolis, a city of the dead featuring a giant baby that turns everything it gazes upon into stone. Chapter 2 leads to a candy factory where a monstrous woman stalks the protagonists, Low and Alone. The grotesque cutscenes scattered throughout are just the icing on the cake.

Chapter 3 features a carnival, where you’re captured by a ventriloquist duo known as the Kin and Mini-Kin. In Chapter 4, you must navigate a hospital while dodging a giant with limbs reminiscent of the world-swallowing serpent Jörmungandr. The carnival in Chapter 3, in particular, captures that unsettling vibe of a decaying festival perfectly.

However, out of the four total chapters, only the Kin and Mini-Kin left a lasting impression as bosses. Very few monsters felt as iconic as those from previous titles, and the final boss, while novel, lacked a certain punch. Furthermore, with the limited length of each chapter, the 49,800 won price tag feels a bit steep for a solo experience.

Having an AI partner is a boon for storytelling and emotional weight. While the previous game also had two protagonists, you couldn't control both. Besides, if you played the first game, you could never truly trust 'Six' in the yellow raincoat; she felt more like a source of chills than a companion.

In this entry, Low and Alone display genuine intimacy from the start. If Low falls, Alone wakes him; if Alone is down, Low embraces her. Watching them hold hands towards the ending highlights their reliance on one another, and the twist left a bitter aftertaste. The only downside? Having a sturdy friend around makes the horror feel a bit diluted.

Mechanically, the dual-protagonist system is flawed. The presence of a companion forces the level design to rely on two characters, leading to limitations. In solo play, the game offloads key puzzles to the AI. While the AI is generally competent, it makes the player feel like a bystander. For example, when I chose to play as Alone, only Low could hit targets, leaving me to merely press a switch while watching the AI show off its archery skills.

Furthermore, the AI companion is designed to run faster than the player—presumably to prevent them from being a hindrance. But this often means the AI rushes ahead to hiding spots or doorways, effectively spoiling the sense of discovery and making puzzle-solving feel trivial.

The logic behind the puzzles is largely unchanged. Low has a bow, Alone a wrench; you’ll be hitting targets, smashing objects, or turning bolts. There are cooperative elements, such as one player acting as a platform or finishing off enemies after they've been pinned by an arrow. The clunky controls and fixed camera angles still make judging Z-axis movement a nightmare.

Yet, these puzzles feel repetitive. You spend a lot of time moving objects or finding hidden items, and it isn't until Chapter 4 that you get unique, emotional puzzles related to dolls. Despite having new tools like the wrench and bow, their application feels basic, as if the developers sacrificed imagination for the sake of pacing.

Most puzzles are incredibly simple; if something is interactive, you just press a button or rotate it to clear the path. Chapters 3 and 4 ramp up the difficulty, but mostly by making the paths more convoluted. The solo experience is quite easy, and co-op would likely make it even faster.

Perhaps to pad out the playtime, some boss sequences have frustratingly long stretches between save points. One section in Chapter 3 requires waiting, operating a lever, and carrying an object—a long sequence where a single mistake forces a restart. Every chapter follows the same 'explore, chase, lull, final boss' structure, which grows monotonous.

If it had stopped there, Little Nightmares 3 might have been a decent, playable title. I usually don't harp on technical issues unless they are egregious, as everyone’s rig is different. However, in this case, I simply cannot stay silent.

The optimisation is all over the place. Despite the dreamlike, stylised graphics, the game caused my PC—equipped with a Ryzen 7 7600 and a GeForce 4070Ti—to overheat. It generated as much heat as a modern AAA title, yet still suffered from stuttering when transitioning between map areas. It made the boss chase sequences particularly painful.

The AI companion issues are another beast. They function like a well-oiled machine in puzzles, but they break during traversal. Sometimes they just stop, unable to find the path, or refuse to become a platform when needed. I had to resort to restarting the game or physically shoving the AI to get them moving again.

The most severe issue is the combination of forced auto-saves and bugs. I am currently two maps away from the end of the final chapter, but the AI froze during a boss chase. Since I couldn't shove them, and moving forward alone caused the AI to get caught and trigger a game-over screen, my five-hour journey ended with less than 30 minutes left to go.

If you are going to force an auto-save system, it must be bug-free. There is no way to revert, meaning you have to restart the entire chapter. The Steam forums are already flooded with complaints: umbrellas not opening in Chapter 1, Nomes vanishing in Chapter 3, jump bugs, and AI drowning in Chapter 4. The previous games had their fair share of bugs, but the fact that this persists under new developers is truly disappointing.

Little Nightmares 3 is a letdown compared to the polished nature of its predecessors. The atmosphere is excellent, but the enemies and bosses lack impact. The two protagonists offer a touch of heart, but the puzzles and mechanics fall short. It feels short for the price, and the game-breaking bugs are far too common. It might have been a solid debut, but against the backdrop of the earlier games, it's hard to be lenient.