Preview: Little Nightmares II sends you to a British school from hell

Little Nightmares Ii School Source: Bandai Namco

Little Nightmares is a franchise of which I was peripherally aware. For any reason, I simply never took the time to dive in and properly check information technology out. The original came out in 2022 and launched to widespread praise for its atmospheric Tim Burton-esque horror stylings. The game very vividly manages to exist simultaneously cute and chilling.

Niggling Nightmares is essentially a puzzle platformer, operating on a side-scrolling 3D aeroplane. Little Nightmares is made by Tarsier Studios, who worked on Sony's adorable LittleBigPlanet franchise. In some ways, it wouldn't exist wild to say Little Nightmares is what might happen if LittleBigPlanet collided with Silent Hill.

Having never played Little Nightmares earlier, I went into preview Footling Nightmares II completely ignorant of what to expect. Afterwards the two-hour preview, showcasing two of the game'due south early environments, I'grand now immediately in love with the franchise, and went straight to grab the original and all of its DLC (which, by the way, is currently on sale).

Piddling Nightmares II launches on February 11, 2022, for every platform, including Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S and PC, and hither's why information technology might exist among the first must-play games of the year.

Schools out

Little Nightmares 2 Xbox Box Art

Little Nightmares ii

A day in the life

Piddling Nightmares two continues the spooky-meets-cutesy tales began past its predecessor dorsum in 2022, with expanded gameplay features and a broader scope.

A world that wants to kill you

Little Nightmares Ii School Source: Bandai Namco

I nonetheless oasis't completed the original, and I'm actively avoiding spoilers for information technology, but it's fairly obvious from the start that Lilliputian Nightmares takes place in a very hostile globe. In the original, you play as Six, armed simply with a yellowish raincoat and a tiny null lighter (which is and so damn beautiful).

As Six, you navigate a malevolent globe that resembles the bowels of a creaking transport, filled to the brim with nonsensical nightmarish architecture and truly terrifying inhabitants, self-mutilated and malformed in otherworldly ways. Niggling Nightmares leans heavily into environmental storytelling, with scenes that give hints about the true nature of the globe, without an explicit narrative. The mystery has spawned a huge community of theorists and artists who attempt to connect the dots and explain the mechanics of this purgatorial domain. I suspect Little Nightmares 2 volition shed light on the questions as much as it raises new ones.

In Little Nightmares Ii, you take control of a new character, named Mono, endowed with a paper bag mask and a scruffy trenchcoat. Piffling Nightmares was about escaping the misty, watery dungeons of the prison-like Maw. Footling Nightmares II seems narratively broader in scope, every bit Mono and his companion embark across the wider globe.

The first level takes place in a swampy woods, filled with bear traps and the ever-nowadays deranged woodsman, who wields a shotgun with reckless carelessness. Indeed, Little Nightmares Ii changes things upwards by calculation even more gainsay elements into the mix to complement its side-scrolling puzzles and tense stealth segments.

There were a few opportunities for 6 to utilise the surround to dispatch enemies in the original game. Little Nightmares II takes information technology a chip further. Mono can wield small weapons he finds on the ground, such as hatchets, pipes, and even kitchen utensils to dispatch smaller enemies. Sometimes these weapons are also used to solve puzzles, such as breaking downwardly objects or through broken doors. The weapons are heavy for him to wield, though, and crave very meticulous timing. If you miss your swing, you lot may very well find yourself getting eaten by the game's crazed inhabitants.

Without spoiling, the kickoff preview level was clearly a rescue mission, with Mono saving a companion from the aforementioned swamp dweller. After doing so, you proceeds a range of new abilities for puzzle solving, with the A.I. partner able to perform tasks you wouldn't be able to solitary. Rushing through the woods with shotgun spray lapping at your heels, you may observe the only choice is to fight fire with burn. Past himself, Mono wouldn't be able to aim and activeness the trigger of a human-sized shotgun, but working with his companion, suddenly, you can become quite deadly despite your tiny size.

A solar day in the school from hell

Little Nightmares Ii School Source: Bandai Namco

The weaponry in Little Nightmares Ii is by no means central to the gameplay. They are fully situational and are often left behind due to their size and weight. It's for those scenes without weapons that you must revert to stealth play, and the next section of the demo really rammed this point habitation.

Little Nightmares II cleverly envelops you in a sense of dread without resorting to cheap jump scares.

Later on the wood area, Mono and his companion traverse across a lake and come up upon an urban area, devoid of life. The environmental details paint a bleak picture, with suicide victims hanging from ceilings, disembodied from their clothing as if they had been raptured upward into the sky. Petty Nightmares II is absolutely crammed with hints at a wider conspiracy that I'thousand certain fans volition love spending hours pouring over when the game finally launches.

Subsequently moving through some battered buildings, I came upon a very harrowing sight for any veteran horror gamer — a big old-fashioned school. Silent Hill'southward school section is forever burned on my psyche equally one of the near paralyzing and claustrophobic experiences in my gaming career. After playing Little Nightmares 2, though, I may have to add some other harrowing school sequence to my list of upsettingly memorable gaming moments.

The way this level is structured is aught brusque of genius, especially if y'all're familiar with schooling beyond Great britain and possibly Europe in general at the turn of the century. Corporal punishment was merely banned in British schools in 1987 (not long after I was built-in, phew). Fifty-fifty then, information technology was legal in most private independent schools all the way upwardly to 1999, which is crazy. Either way, this whole level really does evoke stories my parents told me in my childhood, where my dad was rapped across the knuckles with a wooden ruler several times in front of a school assembly for accidentally breaking a window with a football. A punishment that is simply unthinkable in today'southward times.

To that end, this level features ane of the most twisted creatures I've seen in a game, complete with classic school tropes warped inside out and deliciously smart pacing. Picayune Nightmares 2 cleverly envelops yous in a sense of dread without resorting to cheap leap scares.

This segment takes place across a total day in a twisted school ripped from some kind of Dickensian acid trip. The pacing was cleverly set across school class periods, a tiffin break section, and even lesson prep, complete with frog dissection trays. Every bit y'all sneak through the halls, you'll observe hundreds of psychotic porcelain doll "children" who want to murder each other as much as they do you.

Little Nightmares Ii School Source: Bandai Namco

When there's no teacher present, all chaos breaks loose, with dolls trying to smash each other to bits while turning the surrounding areas into full pandemonium. Despite how violent they are, they remain terrified and wholly obedient to the level'south mystifying centerpiece, known as The Teacher.

With a rubbery elasticated neck, The Teacher tin spot unruly students past turning her caput at very frightening 360-degree angles, speaking to that onetime meme of "teachers have optics in the back of their heads," only now literally.

This segment takes place across a full day in a twisted school ripped from some kind of Dickensian acid trip.

Her favorite form of punishment includes rapping students with a large wooden crop, typical back in onetime-fashioned British schools. You lot'll also find hidden compartments throughout the game, where "students" are punished by being locked in a small space, hidden away from the remainder of the school, reminiscent of The Chokey in Roald Dahl's Matilda.

Still, The Instructor won't spare you such a lenient fate. In the case of Mono, she will only accomplish out with her Medusine neck and bite you to death. Footling Nightmare's ventilation ducts were a source of safety in the original game. In Piffling Nightmares Two, though, those tiny spaces of sanctuary are no longer beyond your enemy's grasp.

Some of the scenes throughout this sequence were truly jaw-dropping, with painstaking detailing and great sound handling. One puzzle segment has you break the floor with a giant pianoforte, which had fully playable keys. After breaking through the flooring, you lot tin can notwithstanding play the piano, but you tin can hear all the insides completely broken with snapped wires plucking against the stale wood. It'due south detailing like this that makes every nook and cranny worth exploring, as y'all fully immerse yourself in this enthralling and mystical globe.

1 of 2022's first must-play games

Little Nightmares Ii School Source: Bandai Namco

I wholly believe Little Nightmares Ii will emerge as one of the yr's early must-play games, based on the two-hour slice I've played. It was and then lovingly polished, so well-realized, and so cute that information technology quite easily sits up there with the likes of Unravel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, INSIDE, and other heavy hitters in this side-on format.

I cannot stress plenty how much this game should be on your radar. Emphasis on stress..

Niggling Nightmares differentiates itself with some truly demented art that sits in this uncanny void where real-world animatronics and stop-motion plasticine often sit, rarely explored in the medium.

Every bit I said in the opening, the brief slice I played for this preview immediately fabricated me hooked on the franchise equally a whole, and I cannot stress enough how much this game should be on your radar—accent on stress. I am confident that Little Nightmares 2 will become one of 2022's big success stories if the full game is anywhere near as skillful as what I experienced in the preview.

Read more: Little Nightmares ii preview: Hospitals just got fifty-fifty creepier

Nightmarish

Little Nightmares 2 Xbox Box Art

Little Nightmares two

Back to school

Little Nightmares two is a suspense-led puzzle platformer with stealth elements, set in a nightmarish universe where everything large and small wants to murder you lot.

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