Little Nightmares 3 Struggles to Live Up to Its Legacy: A Beautiful but Soulless Sequel?

When Little Nightmares 3 was revealed, the excitement was immediate. The return to that eerie, dreamlike setting — now with a co-op mode introduced for the first time — felt like a gift fans had been waiting to receive for years. But when it finally went live, the reaction was not at all what anyone anticipated.

Rather than applause, Steam’s review page instead began to be inundated with exasperated facepalms. Fans who once obsessed over every bizarre frame of the first two games now dismiss this one as hollow — “ a beautiful but soulless sequel.”

A Short Game with a Hefty Price

The most common criticism in almost every player survey? Plain and simple: it’s too short for the price.

A majority of players said they completed Little Nightmares 3 in less than five hours. Others went so far as to label it an “uploaded demo,” claiming that the developers are already charging for additional chapters in the form of future downloadable content — content that won’t even be finished until nearly a year after launch.

“Fun but way too short for the pricetag. And then the nerve to price for two additional chapters as add on dlc? Diabolical,” one player wrote.

For $40 for the base version — and $60 for the deluxe edition that mostly throws in some cosmetic outfits — many feel they have been cheated. Community frustrations were compounded when users learned just how much story content would be released separately.

What could have been a satisfying self-contained adventure instead now seems like a broken mess, and fans are not mincing words about their disappointment.

Nostalgia Without Soul

One of the toughest parts about sequels to classic games is striking a balance between nostalgia and innovation. For fans, Little Nightmares 3 is too reliant on recreating the past — without grasping what made it so memorable.

A few players complained about puzzles, rooms, and even chase sequences that seemed like re-skinned versions of previous levels. The game liberally borrows from Little Nightmares 1 and 2, but it lacks the tension or emotional heft that allowed those moments to resonate.

“The game tried so hard to have the same style as the other two and ironically kinda of did … by almost copying older games exactly,” one reviewer said.

The déjà vu is hard to shake, from the recycled gimmick (“TV teleport,” now redeployed as mirrors) to well once-angular puzzle rooms that uncannily resemble ones you ambled through earlier. The result is that the whole experience feels fragmented to many players — a string of isolated levels unable to weave together into a real world.

Even the updated enemies, such as the candy factory lady or carnival ringmaster, were somewhat bland. People had come to expect that twisted creativity the series was celebrated for. Instead, they wound up with designs that play like background art — pretty to look at, but totally forgettable in action.

When Storytelling Becomes Homework

The strangest gripe is perhaps the one about storytelling itself — how it has come to be presented across a vast array of media.

Little Nightmares 3 needs outside knowledge to make sense. The main story draws on lore from other podcasts, graphic novels and book series that fans may not all even have known existed.

“If you haven’t listened to the podcast, the game itself makes absolutely zero sense,” one fan wrote.

In previous games, the story emerged wordlessly — subtle, mysterious, open to interpretation. You could play this entire game, draw your conclusions and feel the quiet dread of the world. But now, fans say, the series has gone from minimalist storytelling to “monetized lore.”

Some call it “paywalled storytelling,” or story content so significant that it is no longer contained within the game proper, but walled off behind additional purchases. For a franchise that was once lauded for its elegant simplicity, this change feels awkward and unnecessary.

Gameplay and Technical Frustrations

Even if you were to overlook story, Little Nightmares 3 still has gameplay problems and bugs.

Many players report online co-op instability, broken checkpoints and game-breaking glitches — such as one infamous bug that halts progression dead.

“You have to jump on a box to unfetter your friend, and I’m stuck because I can’t jump.” Restarting doesn’t work. You can’t even complete the game”

Complaints about depth perception issues and sluggish movement also resurfaced quite a bit. The game’s previously efficient platforming now feels kludgy, with multiple reviewers noting that they had lost many lives to an unclear vision of depth or unpredictable hit detection.

Some of the mechanics are just introduced such as the bow or wrench, featured and then left unexplored, never dug into deep enough to mean anything. New proposals have found no traction at all; as one player says, “All new ideas are voiced in the same breath that they die.”

A World That Feels Empty

Even those who have praised the game’s visuals say something feels hollow about the world this time.

Little Nightmares 3 does have the unsettling, surreal aesthetic that has become a hallmark of the series, but if anything the pacing undermines some of this tension. Long stretches of “empty rooms and vents” don’t exactly enhance the ambiance. Many of these areas feel visually striking but narratively irrelevant.

“You’re in a room, then you go in a vent, you’re in an empty room again. Yes, the rooms are pretty — but they don’t tell you anything about the story or the mood”

The soundtrack, for that matter, has been called “forgettable.” Without the menacing crescendos or creepy build-ups from previous titles, players were left less emotionally invested in the world.

The result is a game whose protagonist sure looks like Little Nightmares but doesn’t feel anything at all like her.

The Divide Between Old and New Players

Little Nightmares 3 isn’t even hated by everyone, though. A few players — particularly those who are new to the series — have referred to it as “fine” or even “good.”

“It’s not even made by the original studio, but it’s overhated. Yes, it’s flawed, but it’s fun to play”

These players love the graphics and ability to venture through the universe with a friend. For these folks, the co-op is almost enough on its own to make the thing worth a try. Yet even many of the positive reviews shared a common thread: disappointing!

“It’s not terrible, but it’s not what we waited years for”

Longtime fans — the ones who made the franchise a cult hit — are, by contrast, feeling betrayed. For them, the new game is a creative miscalculation for misunderstanding what made Little Nightmares tick in the first place.

A Franchise at a Crossroads

Beneath the anger lurks a deeper emotion: heartbreak.

Fans adored this series for its delicate world-building and disturbing design, all deeply rooted in emotional storytelling. With the developer Tarsier Studios no longer at the helm and Supermassive Games stepping in, players feel that little of Little Nightmares’ soul remains, replaced by corporate polish.

Many of the reviews cite Bandai Namco’s marketing push and merch drops before the game even had a release date — behavior that fans say is emblematic of misplaced priorities.

“We don’t want to be milked for our money.” “If you’re not going to put in any cohesive effort like Tarsier did, then just stop,” one disappointed player wrote.

For some, Little Nightmares 3 is when the series ceased feeling like a passion project and began to feel like a product.

Final Thoughts — A Fading Shadow of What It Was

Little Nightmares 3 is not a bad game. It’s playable, visually arresting and has national chapel shoulder pads moments that almost rekindle some of that embedded eerie magic. But maybe it’s also proof that atmosphere alone doesn’t quite do the job.

It was the quiet storytelling of Little Nightmares that resonated; the kind that didn’t require words or side content to leave you shaken. This sequel, by contrast, feels as if it’s always explaining itself to you through the need for extrinsic material and failing to make you feel it in the present.

It’s not a nightmare — it’s a dream half recalled, slipping away the minute you wake up.

And even if you never played the first two, Little Nightmares 3 could still provide a good evening of haunting fun. Then it’s something more than disappointing for old fans — it’s hollow.

As one critic put it bluntly:

“Little Nightmares ended at 2. This one just seems like a cash grab.”