Little Nightmares II First Impressions

Warning: This article contains mild spoilers for Little Nightmares II.

I’m almost embarrassed to say I counted down the hours at work until I could get home and play through this demo. Almost.

Only almost though, because I don’t regret the choice. Little Nightmares II‘s demo is everything I hoped it’d be. There’s familiar ground from the first game in terms of movement, controls, and style, which is a great deal of what I loved about it in the first place.

Layered over that our protagonist, a young boy named Mono, has some new tricks tucked up under his brown paper bag hat. It’s been a minute since something has satisfied me in a game quite as much as throwing a branch into a pile of bear traps. Maybe I’m easy to please, but Little Nightmares II taking Six’s relative defenselessness and putting a fresh spin on it excited me. Oops.

The enemies have some new tricks too, though. I am a little embarrassed to say, in running through this, that I may have exclaimed out loud to my empty apartment: “The enemies have guns now? No. Nuh-uh. No, ma’am.”

Still, it’s a great recipe for freshening up a familiar formula, and a prime example of an effective game demo. It teaches the mechanics you’re going to need to be familiar with in the full game, both the new ones and those you may need a reminder on from the first game. At the same time, it whets your appetite for the overall atmosphere and experience you can expect, all without giving too much of the story away.

I can say with confidence that I’ll be sitting on tenterhooks waiting for Little Nightmares II‘s expected release on February 10th, 2021. The murky, dusty, at once cute, and unsettling graphic style is exactly as I’d hoped and the environmental puzzles remain as enjoyable as ever. The soundtrack too maintains a sense of threat even when there isn’t one, or at least not an immediate one, and the game introducing the idea of cooperation between Mono and another character brings both a fun new idea and a compelling new challenge into gameplay.

Also, a little snooping in the menu hints that, potentially, as the game progresses you can unlock new hats. I really am easily pleased.

The narrative, no doubt as intended, is still a bit of a question mark, but I’m intrigued by the broader locations and lifesize, ominous-looking mannequins already spread throughout the demo. What we know so far is that Mono’s adventure carries him through a world “distorted by an evil transmission,” as he seeks to find its origin and purpose.

Somewhere along the way, he’ll encounter our old (and his new) friend Six. I’m intrigued to see where, and how, these two characters weave their stories together, what lingering questions from the first game may find new answers, and what new mysteries will be stirred up.