The Verdict
From Tarsier Studios, the Little Nightmares crew, comes a story about orphaned siblings trapped on a nightmarish island, playable in co-op. It became the biggest premiere in the studio's history, and the numbers back the hype: a Metascore around 80, roughly 88% positive critic reviews, and recommended by about 82% on OpenCritic. You knew your strengths and you swung straight at them.
The praise is exactly what you would expect and exactly what you wanted: atmosphere, art direction and sound design. Tarsier has always understood that horror is a feeling, not a body count, and you doubled down on building dread out of scale, silence and gorgeous, wrong-looking environments. That is a moat most studios cannot cross.
An 80 is 'generally favorable,' not 'masterpiece,' and that gap is worth being honest about. Co-op horror is a tightrope, because shared fear can become shared giggling the moment a friend joins, and a mood-first game has to fight to keep tension alive when there are two of you laughing at the dark. You cleared the bar with room to spare, but it is a bar that exists for a reason.
What it nails
- ▲Atmosphere is the headline strength, the single thing Tarsier has always done best, and it carries the whole experience.
- ▲Art direction turns a nightmarish island into something you cannot look away from even as it scares you.
- ▲Sound design earns specific critical praise, doing the quiet, dread-building work that great horror depends on.
- ▲Co-op play extends the studio's signature dread to two players, the biggest premiere in Tarsier history for a reason.
What it botches
- ▼An around-80 Metascore is solidly favorable but stops short of the universal acclaim the studio's pedigree might tease.
- ▼Co-op horror risks deflating its own tension the moment a second player turns fear into shared comedy.
- ▼Leaning hard on atmosphere and art means anyone craving mechanical depth may find the systems thinner than the mood.
- ▼Recommended by about 82% on OpenCritic means roughly one in five critics walked away unconvinced, and that minority is not noise.
Who it's for
Little Nightmares fans, atmosphere-and-art-direction obsessives, and pairs of friends who want to be quietly terrified together rather than gunning down monsters.
Who should skip
Players who want deep mechanics over mood, solo purists wary of co-op-built horror, and anyone who needs a 90-plus Metascore before they commit.
The whole story lives on the hub