Reanimal Review: Tarsier's Darkest Horror Game Yet [2025]

There's a moment in Reanimal where everything clicks. You're trudging through a decrepit city, watching cadavers slither like snakes across crumbling pavement, when suddenly the camera pulls back. The scope shifts. What felt claustrophobic becomes cavernous. And you realize this isn't just another Little Nightmares successor pretending to be something it's not.

This is something darker. Something meaner. Something that doesn't apologize for its nightmares.

Tarsier Studios built its reputation on atmospheric dread. The Little Nightmares games (2017, 2021) became instant classics because they nailed something fundamental about childhood horror: the paralysis of being small in a world built by and for giants. But those games, for all their brilliance, carried a storybook quality. A sense of wonder wrapped in darkness.

Reanimal drops the storybook entirely.

Launching February 13th across PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and Steam, Reanimal is Tarsier's most ambitious work yet. It's an action-platformer that borrows the grim DNA of Playdead's Limbo and Inside, scales it up, and injects something uniquely nightmarish. You control two children (simply called Boy and Girl) as they navigate a twisted world where the laws of spatial logic don't apply. The forest melts into ocean. The ocean opens into a bombed-out city. Everything feels simultaneously familiar and utterly wrong.

The question isn't whether Reanimal is good. It clearly is. The question is whether it reaches the transcendent heights of Playdead's masterpieces, or falls just short of that rarefied air. After dozens of hours with the game, the answer is complicated.

TL; DR

• Darkest Tarsier Game Yet: Reanimal abandons Little Nightmares' storybook charm for raw, unsettling horror that doesn't flinch
• Exceptional Atmosphere: Fluid camera work and grotesque creature design create some of gaming's most haunting moments
• Solid Mechanics, Not Perfect: Platforming and puzzle solving feel instantly familiar but occasionally lack the crystalline polish of Playdead's work
• Wartime Allegory: The game's second half introduces increasingly explicit World War I imagery, anchoring its horror in historical trauma
• Local and Online Co-op: The two-character dynamic works brilliantly both solo and with a partner, changing how you approach challenges

Reanimal performs excellently across all platforms, with PC slightly leading due to its scalability. Estimated data based on technical considerations.

The First Image of Reanimal Will Haunt You

Open Reanimal and the first thing you see is water. Dimly lit buoys float in darkness. You're following them, pulling your two protagonists forward through an expanse that could be ocean, could be void. The game doesn't explain what's happening. No cutscenes. No exposition dumps. Just movement, dread, and the knowledge that something is wrong here.

This opening establishes Reanimal's entire philosophy: show, never tell. Trust the player to understand the unease through visual language alone.

You reach a beach. Suitcases are scattered everywhere, opened and picked clean. Inside one, a key glints in fading light. This is Reanimal's puzzle vocabulary. Not intricate logic gates or head-scratching riddles, but rather environmental storytelling through objects. What happened here? Who left these suitcases? Why does the key matter now?

The game lets you wonder.

From there, you venture into what appears to be a hydroelectric facility. Concrete corridors. Industrial pipes. The architecture suggests human engineering, but the proportions are subtly wrong. Doorways are either too small or too large. The geometry doesn't quite align with how spaces should connect. It creates a disorienting sensation that persists throughout Reanimal.

This is deliberate design. Tarsier isn't just trying to scare you with jump scares or grotesque imagery (though there's plenty of both). The studio is creating cognitive dissonance. Your brain expects environments to follow certain rules. When they don't, something primal activates. Unease. Wrongness. Dread.

Reanimal offers more dynamic camera movements and action sequences compared to Little Nightmares. It also features a darker tone and allows players to sometimes take on a hunter role. (Estimated data)

The Mechanics You Already Know, But Better

If you've played Little Nightmares or Playdead's work, Reanimal's core mechanics will feel immediately familiar. Your pair of children can jump, climb, grab objects, and push/pull environmental elements. Later, they acquire a crowbar—a simple tool that serves multiple purposes. Prying open doors. Smashing smaller enemies. Blocking passages. The crowbar is to Reanimal what the nail gun is to Inside: a multipurpose solution that encourages experimentation.

What's immediately striking is how Tarsier handles movement. There's an elegance to how Boy and Girl navigate space. When jumping between platforms, they don't feel floaty or oversensitive. The controls have weight. Momentum matters. And crucially, when you fail (and you will fail), the recovery feels earned rather than punishing.

Die to a monster, and you restart the nearby checkpoint. But before continuing, the game shows your characters hugging. They're comforting each other. It's a small thing—easily missed—but it transforms the failure state. In most games, death is a mechanical reset. In Reanimal, death is a narrative moment. These children are traumatized, and they're grounding themselves in each other.

The puzzle design follows a similar philosophy to the broader level structure. Nothing is so cryptic that you'll get genuinely stuck. Most obstacles have an obvious solution once you examine them closely. What makes Reanimal engaging isn't puzzle difficulty—it's the way puzzles integrate with movement and pacing. You're rarely standing still. Even "puzzle" sections feel like platforming sequences where you're discovering solutions through exploration.

Early sections teach you the language Reanimal speaks through level design. A locked door implies you need to find a key or crowbar. An elevated passage suggests you need to find a climbing route. An obstacle blocking your path usually has a hidden bypass. These aren't revolutionary design principles—they're the fundamentals Playdead perfected. But Tarsier executes them competently enough that progression never feels unfair.

The real innovation isn't in the mechanics themselves but in how Reanimal's camera frames them. Unlike the static, doll's-house perspective of Little Nightmares, Reanimal's camera is fluid and dynamic. It pulls back to show scope, zooms in for claustrophobic tension, and rotates around your characters to emphasize depth. You're not watching these children through a fixed window. You're directing them through a three-dimensional space that feels cinematic.

The Grotesque Art Direction That Defines the Experience

Tarsier's character design philosophy has always been "less is more." Little Nightmares' creatures are minimalist—elongated limbs, exaggerated proportions, minimal facial features. Your mind fills in the horror. Reanimal doesn't abandon this philosophy, but it evolves it. The creatures here are grotesque without being abstract.

Early enemies include basic humanoid figures with distorted proportions. But as you progress, Reanimal introduces beings that defy simple categorization. There are cadavers that undulate like snakes, their spinal cords visible, their movements almost fluid. A gigantic talking pig that waddles through scenes with disturbing intelligence. A colossal whale that's run aground, slowly dying in the shallows—resigned, patient, agonizing in its resignation.

What makes these designs horrifying isn't their grotesqueness alone. It's the specificity of that grotesqueness. The whale isn't a generic "scary creature." It's a specific kind of tragic. The pig isn't just oversized. Its proportions suggest something that was once human, twisted into porcine form. The skeletal cadavers don't shuffle mindlessly. They pursue with intent, their boneless bodies writhing through impossible angles.

Reanimal's art direction achieves something that's rare in horror media: it's unsettling without relying on gore. Sure, there are gruesome moments. A sniper sequence later in the game shows your characters' bodies explicitly destroyed by bullets. But the horror isn't primarily visceral. It's existential. These beings exist, and their existence defies explanation.

The color palette reinforces this atmosphere. Reanimal leans heavily into desaturated earth tones, with occasional pops of sickly green or blood-red. The hydroelectric facility is all concrete grays and industrial whites. The forest is muted browns and dead greens. The coastal section introduces pale blues and bone whites. Even when Reanimal does use color, it's sparingly and purposefully. Nothing feels accidental.

Camera framing amplifies the art direction's impact. When you're being pursued by a monster, the camera doesn't frame it as a distant threat. It fills the frame. It looms. You're seeing your pursuer at ground level, which means you're seeing how much larger it is than you. Perspective matters enormously in how we perceive threat.

While Reanimal is a strong contender with high ratings, it slightly lags behind Inside's perfection in animation precision and camera transitions. Estimated data based on qualitative analysis.

Chasing the Darkness: When Children Become Hunters

Here's where Reanimal diverges from Little Nightmares' formula in interesting ways. The Little Nightmares games are fundamentally about avoidance. You're prey, and you must escape. Reanimal doesn't eliminate that dynamic, but it complicates it.

Partway through the game, the power dynamic shifts. Boy and Girl start chasing monsters. You see a grotesque creature silhouetted against a wall, hear its loping footsteps, and then you're the ones pursuing it into darkness. The game forces you to follow creatures into pitch-black passages where you can't see what's waiting.

This creates a fascinating psychological tension. Your instinct is to avoid these entities. But the game is literally pushing you toward them. You overcome your programmed fear and chase anyway. And in chasing, you gain agency. You're no longer purely reactive. You're making choices about when to engage and when to flee.

It's a subtle but important evolution of the action-platformer formula. Most games in this genre reinforce passivity—navigate the environment, reach the exit, solve the puzzle. Reanimal occasionally flips that dynamic. You hunt as much as you're hunted. You decide when to engage and when to avoid. This creates moments of genuine tension that feel different from the "run or die" sequences of earlier sections.

The co-op dynamic amplifies this tension. When you're playing solo, you have full control over both characters' actions. In co-op, you're relying on a partner to coordinate. One character might need to draw an enemy's attention while the other finds an escape route. Or you might both need to run simultaneously, trusting that your partner will make the right moves. Co-op doesn't fundamentally change the game's mechanics, but it transforms how you experience them. Shared vulnerability becomes shared triumph.

The Wartime Allegory That Grounds the Horror

Reanimal takes considerable time before revealing its thematic center. The early sections feel almost timeless. They could be from any era. The hydroelectric facility could exist in any era. The forest has no obvious temporal markers.

Then, a soldier appears.

He's wearing a Brodie helmet—the distinctive steel helmet used in World War I. It's a specific visual marker that instantly grounds Reanimal in history. A few scenes later, you spot coastal artillery. Then fortifications. Then trench systems. Reanimal is set in the aftermath of industrial war.

This revelation is crucial to understanding what Reanimal is attempting. Tarsier has always played with wartime imagery in subtle ways. The Little Nightmares games featured heaps of shoes and belongings that recalled the possessions confiscated at Nazi concentration camps. But that imagery was woven subtly into the texture of the world. You could miss it entirely.

Reanimal's wartime allegory is more explicit. At one particularly brutal moment, you must evade a sniper. There's no combat—you can't fight back. You must find cover. Fail to do so, and the game shows your character's body being torn apart by rifle fire. The animation is sudden and graphic. The moment is designed to be traumatic.

It's a stark contrast to how other major games handle warfare. The Call of Duty franchise celebrates military combat with bombast and heroism. Battlefield amplifies that absurdity into pure spectacle. Reanimal approaches wartime from the perspective of a child trying to survive. There's no heroism here. No narrative justification. Just survival against overwhelming odds.

This thematic anchoring is what elevates Reanimal beyond being merely another atmospheric platformer. The horror isn't abstract. It's rooted in human history. The monstrous beings you encounter aren't supernatural—they're the physical manifestations of industrial warfare's dehumanizing machinery. The wartime imagery in the second half suggests that these creatures, as grotesque as they are, are human in origin. They're what war makes of people.

Reanimal is rated highest for its deep thematic exploration of wartime allegory, contrasting with the more spectacle-driven approaches of Call of Duty and Battlefield. (Estimated data)

Camera Work as Storytelling Device

Reanimal's camera deserves its own analysis because it's genuinely one of the game's greatest strengths. The camera isn't passive. It's actively telling the story alongside the environment and creature design.

Consider how the camera responds when you enter a new space. It doesn't just pan to show you the full layout. It guides your attention. When you enter a room containing a puzzle, the camera frames that puzzle specifically. When a threat approaches, the camera often shifts to show the threat before your character even sees it, creating dramatic irony. You know danger is coming. Your character doesn't. Yet.

The camera also shifts dynamically during chase sequences. When you're fleeing a monster, the camera pulls back slightly, giving you more situational awareness. When you're navigating a tight corridor, it tightens to create claustrophobia. These adjustments happen so naturally that you rarely notice them happening. You simply feel the changing mood.

One particularly effective camera technique is the slow pan. As your characters move through certain areas, the camera holds on grotesque details before following them forward. A pile of bones. A wall covered in scratches. A child's toy abandoned in darkness. The camera lingers just long enough to register what you're seeing without feeling like exposition.

During the game's quieter moments—and there are quite a few—the camera becomes almost meditative. It pulls back, framing your characters as small figures in vast spaces. These moments give you breathing room. They're not mandatory rests, but they function as them. The game slows down. You can observe. The atmosphere of dread shifts to something more contemplative.

This camera language is why Reanimal feels more cinematic than Little Nightmares. You're not watching these events unfold behind glass. You're experiencing them from a vantage point that's continuously adjusted for maximum emotional impact. It's subtle direction that enhances the experience without calling attention to itself.

The Pacing Problem (Yes, There Is One)

For all of Reanimal's strengths, it does have a notable weakness: pacing occasionally stumbles in the late game. Not catastrophically, but noticeably enough to interrupt the flow.

The middle section of Reanimal is nearly flawless. The early game establishes atmosphere and teaches you the mechanical language. The middle section escalates both the challenges and the story's scope. But in the final act, the game seems uncertain about what it wants to be.

There's a stretch where you're navigating a city that feels repetitive. The creature design remains strong, but you're encountering similar enemy types in similar environments. The environmental puzzles, which earlier felt like natural parts of level navigation, start to feel more contrived. There's a sequence involving machinery that doesn't quite land—not because it's mechanically broken, but because it feels disconnected from the surrounding atmosphere.

It's not game-breaking. You'll push through and reach the finale, which largely redeems these missteps. But it's worth noting that Reanimal doesn't maintain its early-game tension consistently. Other games in this genre—Playdead's Inside, for instance—sustain momentum right to the end. Reanimal dips.

This isn't a death knell. The finale is strong enough to forgive the stumble. And the stumble itself is brief. But it does prevent Reanimal from reaching the "perfect execution" category occupied by games like Inside or the first Little Nightmares.

Estimated data shows that existential horror and grotesque design are key contributors to Reanimal's unsettling atmosphere, with specificity and color palette also playing significant roles.

Co-op: The Game Wants to Be Played Together

Reanimal supports both solo play and co-op, but it's clear that Tarsier designed the experience with co-op in mind. Playing solo, you control both characters in tandem. In co-op, you each control one, which changes the fundamental dynamic of every challenge.

Solo play feels like puppeteering. You're making micro-adjustments to both characters' positions, timing their actions in concert. It requires precision and a certain understanding of spatial relationships. Co-op play feels like partnership. You're communicating with another player, coordinating movements, relying on them to handle their character while you handle yours.

Certainly, some sequences are designed to feel different depending on how you're playing. There are moments where one character needs to stay in a specific position while the other moves forward. Solo, this is a straightforward mechanic. In co-op, it becomes a moment of trust. You're leaving your partner behind (temporarily) to accomplish a goal elsewhere. There's tension in that separation.

The game supports both local and online co-op, which is increasingly rare in modern platformers. Online co-op introduces slight latency, which can affect precision timing. But Tarsier has designed challenges generously enough that minor latency doesn't break the experience. You still feel connected to your co-op partner even across internet connections.

If you're planning to play Reanimal, try co-op at least for a few sections. It's the intended way to experience it, and the game shines when you're playing with someone else. The shared vulnerability, the moments of coordinated triumph, the times when one player makes a brilliant move that saves the other—these moments are what Reanimal does best.

Where Reanimal Doesn't Quite Match Playdead's Perfection

Let's address the elephant in the room: Reanimal is frequently compared to Playdead's work (Limbo, Inside) because the comparisons are inevitable. Both studios make atmospheric action-platformers with dark themes and minimalist design. Both prioritize mood over mechanics.

The reality is that while Reanimal is an excellent game, it doesn't quite reach the crystalline perfection of Inside. Playdead's 2016 masterpiece feels like every pixel, every frame of animation, every sound effect was placed with infinite precision. Nothing feels accidental. Nothing feels loose. Inside is a game where every decision—visual, audio, mechanical—serves the whole.

Reanimal is close. Very close. But there are moments where the tightness falters slightly. Animations occasionally have weight that feels slightly imprecise. Camera transitions sometimes feel a hair too slow. Some environmental details feel decorative rather than purposeful.

These aren't flaws so much as they are "not quite perfect" moments. Reanimal is a 9 out of 10 game trying to achieve 10 out of 10 status. It gets damn close. But the gap exists.

What prevents Reanimal from closing that gap is partly technical limitation and partly design choice. Inside was developed in collaboration with a very specific vision and endless iteration. Reanimal, while clearly having received tremendous care, has broader scope and slightly more ambition. More locations to design. More creature types. More environmental variety. That scope sometimes works against absolute precision.

The Sound Design (Often Overlooked But Critical)

One element that deserves mention is Reanimal's audio design, which is exceptional but easy to take for granted if you're not listening carefully. The game uses minimal music. There are long stretches where you're hearing only ambient sound: wind, creaking metal, water, your characters' footsteps.

This absence of traditional soundtrack is itself a design choice. It creates isolation. When music does appear, it's sparse and unsettling. A few notes on strings. A low drone. Nothing that you'd hum after playing. Nothing that feels "composed" in the traditional sense.

Footstep sound design is particularly good. You can tell terrain by how your characters' feet sound. Sand gives way to water. Water gives way to concrete. Concrete transitions to metal. The audio landscape teaches you about the environments almost as much as the visuals do.

Monster sounds are designed to be unsettling without being immediately recognizable. The cadaver creatures make sounds that are somewhere between breathing and slithering. The giant pig has a grotesque wet snout-sound. The whale produces occasional groans that are almost vocal—almost intelligent.

Reanimal proves that sound design doesn't need to be intricate or complex to be effective. Simplicity and specificity matter more. Every sound has purpose. None feel redundant.

Performance and Technical Considerations

Testing Reanimal across multiple platforms reveals solid technical execution across the board. On PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, the game runs at a steady 60 frames per second with visual quality settings that look sharp without being pushing bleeding-edge graphics. The game prioritizes art direction over raw polygon count, which is the right choice.

Switch 2 performance is solid—the game maintains 60 fps in portable mode and docked mode, with minor graphical concessions that don't significantly impact the experience. If you're playing Reanimal on Switch 2, you're getting essentially the same experience as console versions, which is impressive for the hardware.

PC performance is excellent. The game scales well across different GPU configurations. Ray tracing isn't included, which is fine—Reanimal doesn't need it. The art direction works perfectly with traditional rasterization.

Load times are minimal across all platforms. The game uses frequent checkpoint systems that load instantly, which is crucial for a game where you'll die repeatedly.

One technical note: the online co-op uses peer-to-peer networking rather than dedicated servers. This means connection quality depends on both players' internet speeds. With stable connections, it works seamlessly. With unstable connections, you might experience slight latency. For a game like Reanimal, where timing matters but isn't frame-perfect, this is acceptable.

The Verdict: A Worthy Successor to Little Nightmares

Reanimal is a remarkable achievement. Tarsier Studios has created something that honors its past while charting new territory. It's darker than Little Nightmares. It's more ambitious in scope. It's willing to be uglier, scarier, more unsettling.

Does it reach the absolute perfection of Playdead's Inside? No. But it doesn't need to. Reanimal succeeds on its own terms. It's a game about children surviving in a world that dehumanizes them. It's a game about holding onto your partner when everything else is falling apart. It's a game that refuses to look away from darkness and instead stares directly into it.

The pacing occasionally stumbles. The technical execution is excellent but not flawless. But these minor quibbles don't diminish what Reanimal accomplishes. This is a game that will stay with you. The images you see—the cadavers, the whale, the sniper—these will linger in your mind long after the game ends.

Reanimal launches February 13th across PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and Steam. If you've played Little Nightmares and thought "I want this but darker," Reanimal is exactly that. If you love atmospheric platformers with genuine horror elements, Reanimal is essential.

This is Tarsier's best work. Play it.

FAQ

What is Reanimal?

Reanimal is an action-platformer developed by Tarsier Studios, the team behind the Little Nightmares series. The game launched on February 13, 2025, across PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and Steam. You control two child characters navigating a grotesque, nightmarish world filled with disturbing creatures and environmental puzzles. The game can be played solo or in local/online co-op.

How does Reanimal's gameplay differ from Little Nightmares?

Reanimal borrows Little Nightmares' core concept—children navigating a world designed by larger, threatening forces—but evolves the execution significantly. The camera is more fluid and dynamic than Little Nightmares' fixed perspective, giving you a cinematic viewpoint rather than a doll's-house view. Mechanically, Reanimal adds tools like a crowbar, includes more action-oriented sequences, and importantly, sometimes puts you in the hunter position rather than purely as hunted prey. The tone is darker and nastier, with less of Little Nightmares' storybook charm.

What platforms is Reanimal available on?

Reanimal is available on Play Station 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and Steam (PC). The game performs well across all platforms, maintaining 60 frames per second on consoles. Switch 2 versions are technically solid with minor graphical concessions that don't significantly impact the experience.

Is Reanimal better played solo or in co-op?

While Reanimal supports both solo play and co-op (local and online), the game is clearly designed with co-op in mind. Playing solo requires you to control both characters in concert, which feels like puppeteering. Co-op feels like genuine partnership, where you're coordinating with another player and relying on their decisions. Both modes work, but co-op offers a richer experience. If you have the option, try at least some sections in co-op.

How does Reanimal compare to Playdead's Inside?

Both games are atmospheric action-platformers with dark themes and minimalist design philosophy. Reanimal is excellent but doesn't quite match the crystalline perfection of Inside. Inside feels like every pixel was placed with infinite precision, while Reanimal occasionally has moments where the tightness falters slightly. Reanimal does offer broader scope—more locations, more creature variety—which sometimes works against absolute polish. Reanimal is a strong 9 out of 10; Inside is a perfect 10.

What is Reanimal's story about?

Reanimal doesn't explain its story through dialogue or cutscenes. Instead, it uses visual and environmental storytelling. The game opens on water, progresses through an industrial facility, enters a forest, reaches a coast, and eventually arrives at a bombed-out city. The second half introduces World War I imagery—Brodie helmets, fortifications, sniper positions—suggesting the game is set in the aftermath of industrial war. The broader theme involves the dehumanizing effects of warfare and children trying to survive in a world not built for them.

Does Reanimal have jump scares?

Reanimal uses jump scares sparingly and mostly in service of the narrative rather than cheap thrills. The game's horror is primarily atmospheric and existential—derived from the grotesque creature design, unsettling environments, and the constant threat of danger. There are moments of sudden danger (particularly the sniper sequence), but these serve story purposes rather than being manufactured scares. Most of Reanimal's horror comes from what you're seeing, not sudden loud noises.

How long is Reanimal?

Reanimal takes approximately 6-8 hours to complete, depending on your puzzle-solving speed and whether you're playing solo or co-op. Co-op can be slightly longer because coordination takes extra time. Some players may take longer if they're exploring thoroughly or dying frequently. The game isn't excessively long, which works in its favor—it doesn't overstay its welcome despite occasional pacing stumbles.

Does Reanimal have difficulty settings?

No, Reanimal does not feature difficulty modes. The game is designed with a single difficulty curve. This difficulty is moderate—not brutally hard like some platformers, but not trivial either. Most players will find certain sections challenging but manageable. Checkpoints are frequent, so deaths don't result in long repeats.

What makes Reanimal's creature design effective?

Reanimal's creatures are grotesque without relying primarily on gore or traditional monster design. They're unsettling because they suggest something that was once human or animal but has been twisted into impossible forms—cadavers that undulate like snakes, a giant pig with disturbing intelligence, a colossal dying whale. The effectiveness comes from specificity: each creature has distinct movement patterns, sounds, and behaviors that feel intentional rather than random. The game also doesn't over-explain these creatures, leaving their origins and nature ambiguous, which enhances the existential horror.

Conclusion: Reanimal and the Future of Atmospheric Horror Games

Reanimal arrives at an interesting moment for the action-platformer genre. Over the past decade, games like Playdead's Inside, Tarsier's own Little Nightmares series, and indie titles like Gris have proven that atmospheric, artistic experiences can find massive audiences. The blockbuster industry often ignores these games, but they resonate deeply with players who crave something beyond the standard gameplay loop.

Reanimal is the latest entry in this lineage, and it firmly establishes that Tarsier Studios understands this audience. The developers aren't trying to make a game for everyone. They're making a game for people who want to sit with dread, who appreciate visual storytelling, who understand that horror doesn't require jump scares or gore to be effective.

What's remarkable about Reanimal is its willingness to be genuinely dark. The previous Little Nightmares games were dark, certainly, but they maintained a gothic fairy-tale quality. Reanimal drops that quality almost entirely. The storybook charm is gone, replaced by something rawer and more challenging. This choice won't appeal to everyone—some players will find Reanimal excessive in its darkness. But for those it resonates with, Reanimal becomes something more than a game. It becomes an experience that lingers.

The world needs more games like Reanimal. More games willing to prioritize atmosphere over accessibility. More games that trust players to understand unease without explanation. More games that say something meaningful through visual language rather than dialogue. Tarsier has delivered exactly that.

If you've ever felt the magnetic pull of Playdead's work, if Little Nightmares haunted you in the best way possible, if you believe games can be art with something to say: Reanimal is waiting. February 13th marks the launch of 2025's most ambitious horror experience. Don't miss it.

Key Takeaways

• Reanimal abandons Little Nightmares' storybook charm for genuinely dark, unsettling horror without relying on gore
• Fluid, cinematic camera work and grotesque creature design create some of gaming's most haunting visual moments
• World War I imagery grounds the game's horror in historical trauma rather than abstract supernatural dread
• Co-op gameplay transforms the experience from solo puppeteering into genuine partnership and shared vulnerability
• While excellent with strong execution, Reanimal approaches but doesn't quite match Playdead's Inside in absolute crystalline perfection

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