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Arriving back to the golden age of the indie horror boom in the mid-2010s, Little Scary 3 is a puzzle-platforming adventure that returns one of the era’s most successful franchises to our screens, but this time under new management.
Although the first two games were developed by Tarsier Studios, Little Scary 3 Instead it’s the first to be developed by Supermassive Games, and it shows unfortunately. Finding your footing with a new IP is one thing, but building on one with a dedicated following creates a challenge that Supermass can’t face.
Review the review information
Platform reviewed: Xbox Series S
Available: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, PC, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2
Release Date: October 10, 2025
A telltale sign is how similar Little Scary 3 For its predecessors, it lacks originality. The puzzles are repetitive and often overly simplistic, and many of the mechanics added to the game feel underutilized and can also affect the packaging. This is especially true if you are playing single player.
Instead of any real innovation, Little Scary 3 What about adding co-op, dusting off his hands, and serving you endless, repetitive rehash of old games?
It sounds harsh, but taken from previous entries there’s still some good in it. It’s still quite the atmosphere, delivering beautifully haunting style and sound design, as well as some great (very rare) moments of tension and excitement. It simply lacks creativity and represents a lost opportunity to do something new.
Not going anywhere
Little Scary 3 Have players once again plunge into the gloomy liminal space between sleep and wakefulness, this time with two new protagonists: Kim and Alone. Both of these can be played in online co-op (although, disappointingly, not local co-op), or you can pick one of the two up to guide you through the adventure solo.
But what does it look like in practice? In short. , lots of running, climbing and crawling through endless tunnels. at times, Little Scary 3 It can be compared to a trick question in a school exam. The puzzles are largely too simple and repetitive, and many times I was completely stuck as I looked for more complex answers to my problems.
Once in a while, that’s okay. And a lot of games cleverly play on that experience, but here it just feels slow and unrelenting. Very few moments present any real challenge, and when I do I’ve never found one Little dreams The puzzles are particularly difficult, taking the first three of the game’s four tasks before a puzzle would truly stop me from thinking.
The best bit
Little Scary 3 As it enters its final chapter, it finds its foundation. Here, the puzzles feel narratively driven, and I especially enjoyed the time that allows you to see the Institute in its former glory.
It’s especially disappointing that it’s taking so long to bring up the heat, given how short the game is, too. With only four acts and the first two feeling particularly short, I would have hoped for more rooms with obstacles, scares, and action, but the vast majority just involve pushing and expanding a box, pulling a switch, or opening a hatch, or opening a hatch and bolting to the next room for the same.
It’s doubly frustrating in the slow-paced single-player mode, where you spend a lot of time catching up to your partner and joining you in moving an otherwise invincible object or trying to figure out if you need to command them to interact with their weapons to progress.
Kim and Alone are also armed with a bow and arrow and a wrench, respectively, with which the hero must navigate through the treacherous landscape of nowhere, avoiding and defeating enemies to find the mirror portal and escape the nightmare. The game doesn’t really use these tools particularly well. Every now and then, Lou will need to crash through a doorway or shoot something suspended in mid-air by a single rope, or there will be a short combat sequence where the biggest challenge is working your way deeper into the playing field to nail an enemy.
In a lonely world
While navigating the surface is often mistaken for tedium, there’s definitely a lot to see. This goes to great lengths to increase the game’s appeal, but if you’re here for a lot of scares, you might be disappointed. Again, this is something that gets better as the game goes on, with enemies getting progressively more creatively weird.
The bond between Kim and Lonesome is another highlight, though it’s quite rare. Their no-nonsense, evolving courtship by Holland opens up new avenues for gesture and emotion, and puts his individual stamp on the franchise. It takes a while to blossom, though — which means there isn’t much story development or emotional tension between the two until the final chapter.
It’s short in a game that undercuts the intended impact of the gut cartoon, which fell pretty flat for me in comparison. Little Scary 2 Evil end.
As far as world building and narrative goes, Little Scary 3 Would have done well to lean more on its predecessors. It’s perfectly understandable to err on the side of caution when it comes to established lore, but when there’s so much great content to develop, and none of it is connected to a low-key and lonely adventure, with a few easter eggs dropped here and there.
However, the biggest let down for me is definitely the enemies and bosses. Part of what made the enemies in the old games so understandable was that they left behind a childlike imagination. Thoroughly realistic and challenging horrors we hope no child will ever dream of. i Little Scary 3they feel too derivative. A giant, giant baby doll, a grumpy old hag with extra weapons to hold you down, a ventriloquist, and a giant facility manager doesn’t exactly scream “otherworldly horror” to me.
Overall, there’s plenty to like about it Little Scary 3 To recommend it to the casual player, and if you missed the first two, it’s not a bad way to introduce the core concepts that define the franchise. If, however, you’re a big fan like me and want something that builds on Tarsier’s labor, you’ll be hard pressed to settle. It’s not a bad game by any means. It’s just not a great one.
Should you play Little Nightmares 3?
If you play it…
If you don’t play it…
Accessible features
There is decent coverage for accessibility needs Little Scary 3; From compositional controls to highlight toggles for characters and interactive elements.
There are also separate volume sliders for sound effects, music, playable characters and enemies, a toggle for colorblind mode, axis inversion, camera shake and even indicators for when a character is off-screen.
How I reviewed Little Dreams
I played the game (approx. 8 hours) on my Xbox Series S with the Xbox Wireless Controller. I tested this on my Sony KD-49XH8096 TV using Logitech Multimedia Z2000 speakers using standard settings.
While playing little dreams 3, I compared my experience not only to the previous two titles, but also to other puzzle-platform horror games Limbo And inside.
First reviewed November 2025
