"Tarsier's Little Nightmares games were rightly praised for how their imposing and exaggerated worlds hold up a creepy funhouse mirror to a child's thoughts and fears. Adults are gangly and terrifying; work is bizarre; bureaucracy is uncanny. Reanimal draws from that same well of fear, but with occasional riffs that feel at odds with childhood disempowerment, such as moments where the kids pilot a tank, or find a big honking bazooka."
"Updating this method for 2026, we've got a few new contenders: how soon before you shimmy slowly through a gap, boost a companion over a high ledge so they can pull you up or tediously rotate some mechanism with the analogue stick? Reanimal pulls out all these hits within the first 20 minutes and, by the time the credits roll, six hours in, it feels as if developer Tarsier has wrung the final drops of interactive novelty from its formula of light exploration puzzles,"
Reanimal follows child protagonists searching for lost friends across desolated urban waterways, rowing through dark waves and encountering rabid, malformed entities. The game blends light exploration puzzles, simple stealth, tense chases, and occasional cooperative play. Early gameplay delivers common puzzle-platformer beats quickly, including narrow-shimmying, boosting companions, and rotating mechanisms, compressing familiar mechanics into the first 20 minutes. The experience spans roughly six hours and oscillates between effective, sorrowful atmosphere and repetitive interactions. The game echoes the exaggerated, uncanny worldbuilding of Little Nightmares while introducing jarring power-fantasy riffs such as tanks and bazookas. Visuals emphasize worn architecture, assured cinematography, and arresting scale.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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