I Did Not Expect The Little Nightmares Games To Be Some Of The Creepiest I’ve Ever Played

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I love horror games and I’m not easily scared. I usually prefer the most terrifying monsters possible, but I’ve realized that ‘scary’ doesn’t always mean huge and monstrous. Sometimes, the truly frightening things are more subtle and even… human.

Darkest Dungeon is famous for its challenging sanity mechanics and its memorable opening cinematic. The film features a massive, terrifying creature hidden deep underground – a sight that understandably drove the Ancestor to flee in terror. While incredibly frightening, this monstrous being doesn’t resonate with me as strongly as some other horror villains, even within Darkest Dungeon itself and similar games.

You know, the horror villains that *really* get under my skin aren’t the big, obvious monsters. It’s the ones that feel like they started as people – or at least, something recognizably human. The Resident Evil games are masters at this! From the basic zombies to those terrifying Regenerators and even Nemesis, they just hit different. It’s way more unsettling when you can see a hint of what they *were*.

The games feature a heartbreaking history of humans being cruelly experimented on, transforming them into monstrous figures – like Lisa Trevor. Beyond that tragedy, there’s a deeper unsettling feeling. I find the distorted and exaggerated human characters in the Little Nightmares series far more disturbing than any traditional monsters or Lovecraftian horrors.

Watch out for minor spoilers for the first two Little Nightmares games below!

I first played the game in April 2017, and it’s stayed with me ever since. After finishing the sequel, I realized how deeply the series had affected me – it’s become as memorable as the unsettling parasite in Baldur’s Gate 3. There’s no escaping it now. I’ll never forget the shocking moment when you slam the door on the Janitor in the original game; it was one of the first truly powerful scenes.

One thing became clear to me: the game’s boss battles are incredibly memorable. They’re unique and unsettling, like being hunted by relentless Guests or trying to escape the Twin Chefs in a terrifying kitchen. I constantly felt rushed to solve visual puzzles – and failed a lot, to be honest, because that’s not my specialty – but it all added to the intense experience.

Throughout my journey, I constantly felt like I was being chased by a powerful, unknown force, and I only had whatever resources were immediately around me to defend myself. What was truly disturbing was that my pursuers appeared as twisted, almost unrecognizable versions of people.

Nightmares Indeed

I’ve always been really creeped out by things like ventriloquist dummies and dolls, especially in horror movies – it’s like they tap into this unsettling feeling. And honestly, *Little Nightmares* just nails that! It takes normal, everyday stuff and twists it into something genuinely terrifying. It’s brilliant how they make the mundane so sinister.

The school in the second game is the most unsettling location in the entire series, thanks to its creepy bullies and the teacher with the incredibly long neck. What makes the bullies particularly frightening isn’t their size—they’re actually around the same size as the main characters—but the fact that they always travel in groups. This makes the player feel even more alone and vulnerable, and after everything that’s happened, it’s just another layer of stress we don’t need.

We often feel helpless, especially when using our clumsy weapon to defend ourselves. The game consistently emphasizes how small and vulnerable we are, pitting us against much larger enemies in vast surroundings. This feeling is subtly reinforced through simple actions, like having to climb on furniture to navigate the environment.

We had to keep going, scanning from left to right, and with each new view, the terrible reality of our situation became clearer. The more I saw, the more disturbing questions arose about the Maw, why the Janitor captured people, and what the chefs were making with all that meat—and it was all deeply wrong.

During the second game, I began to suspect where The Thin Man – who was dressed as Slender Man – came from, and a growing sense of fear turned out to be partially right.

Little Nightmares doesn’t rely much on cheap jump scares, but it’s still surprisingly effective at creating tense moments. I genuinely reacted when Six aggressively caught a Nome, and I nearly shouted during the ‘Secrets of the Maw’ DLC when I realized the ‘Sausage Nome’ – as I’d nicknamed him – was actually the Runaway Kid.

Those poor Nomes.

The ending of the second game, with Six’s change and Mono falling, still really affected me. The storytelling is brilliant – it doesn’t use any spoken dialogue, instead relying on surprising twists, and small clues throughout the game. I was completely hooked! It’s a perfect example of suspenseful, atmospheric horror.

I’m planning to play Little Nightmares 3 at the end of October. I was a little worried that it wasn’t developed by the original creators, Tarsier Studios, but I’m still really looking forward to it. Nothing else really captures the same feeling for me, though there are other good games with a similar atmosphere.

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2025-10-16 05:10