After the success of horror puzzle-platformer Little Nightmares (2017), indie team Tarsier Studios of Malmö, Sweden, returned with a sequel.

Little Nightmares II launched in February 2021, so we’re a little late getting to this one. But it was worth the wait, as it’s a horrifically good game indeed.

It’s actually one of those games just as much fun to watch as it is to play, playing out like a suspenseful horror movie. Thus, let us behold it!

Horror With a Bag On its Head in Little Nightmares II

This one is available on PC and all games consoles (good news for horror buffs there, eh?) and offers around five hours of gameplay time.

As with its predecessor, it has a 2.5D visual style.

Little Nightmares II beginning is a little too similar to Playdead’s 2016 masterpiece INSIDE. It’s almost like it’s a direct rip off, rather than a homage. Maybe it is the latter… regardless, it’s over pretty quickly and then the main stab of the gameplay begins.

It’s like a little house of horrors jaunt.

Don’t be fooled by the slightly cutesy graphics, this one doesn’t hold back on the suspense and disturbing imagery. It’s a very real horror experience.

As for a plot, you take control of a barefoot boy called Mono. He has a bag over his head (for an unexplained reason). After coming to from a dream, he awakes out in the woods and then stumbles through a VERY HOSTILE REGION INDEED to a decrepit old shack.

Here are the first 15 minutes to watch. Do so, if you’re brave enough!

You get around five hours of gameplay in total. Despite its horror setting, the main thrust of the game is its puzzle solving.

This genre follows the same pattern. You run in one direction, then something blocks your path, and you work out how to overcome the obstacle.

We saw it carried out in a bit less emphatic fashion for Planet of Lana earlier in 2023. But Little Nightmares II is much more successful in providing proper head scratchers.

Some of the puzzles are great. Just check out this chess one.

As brilliant as some gamers may find this genre, there’s no denying others will will find the constant stop-start nature a bit galling.

You don’t ever get a real flow going.

However, we love this type of thing and found Little Nightmares II to offer a great time of it. On the whole, anyway, we do think it’s an improvement on its predecessor. It doesn’t massively overhaul the formula, more it delivers slight improvements here and there.

Plus, some of the things you see are grotesque and horrifying!

The atmospherics are spot on and the music suitably eerie, so you’re playing along whilst this sort of stuff grumbles away (the score, FYI, was by Tobias Llija who also created the music for the first game).

And yeah, there we go! Little Nightmares II is very good indeed and it’ll genuinely send some shivers down your spine.

If you’re looking for a proper horror jaunt that’ll freak you out proper good, whilst also letting you enjoy some inventive puzzle solving type stuff, then you can’t go too wrong here.

Perhaps not for everyone as it is quite linear in its structure, but that’s this genre for you. Fans of titles like INSIDE will revel in this one and, yes, hide in the corner under a cushion whilst doing so.