Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes Is A Well-Crafted Horror Where Atmosphere Makes Up For Technical Stumbles [Review]

Debuting almost ten years ago, the Little Nightmares series is a distinctly designed horror/adventure series that relies on a mix of puzzle-platforming mechanics and incredibly effective atmosphere for its scares. The series largely follows Six and Mono, children who have ended up trapped in the surreal and horrifying world of the Pale City. While most of the series has largely relied on platforming mechanics for the underlying gameplay, Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes drags the player directly into the action themselves.

This turns out to be a largely successful idea, with the creepy atmosphere and tense chases working terrifically in the VR space. While the overall game does suffer from technical challenges, the immersive effect of the strong art design and worldbuilding goes a long way towards bringing the player firmly into the action. Horror fans itching for a new VR experience will find plenty to love in the newest entry in the series, even if some technical hang-ups keep it from realizing perfection.

Review Score: 4/5

Pros:	Cons:
Good sense of atmosphere and memorable visual aesthetic deliver an effectively frightening experience.	Somewhat finicky controls break the immersion at key moments.
Focus on stealth, puzzles, and horror genre conventions come together for strong highlights.	Relatively short run time undercuts replayability.
Fantastic art design and use of the VR tech does a great job of transporting the player into a surreal and harrowing world.	Ambigious storytelling approach might leave some players confused or frustrated.

I Always Feel Like Someone’s Watching Me

The VR-focused follow-up to the Little Nightmares franchise puts players directly into the role of Dark Six, the astral form of Six that was left behind when the Thin Man kidnapped her during the events of Light Nightmares II. The entire story is told in first-person perspective, with players exploring Signal Tower and discovering other captured children, mysterious glowing doors, and the monstrous Thin Man around every corner. The gameplay relies entirely on movement and puzzles, with players tasked with avoiding detection from the Thin Man or his various wards around the tower.

Players discover environmental challenges and puzzles all around the tower and the Pale City while making their way through it. The aesthetic of the Little Nightmare franchise works wonderfully well in the VR space, providing a haunting and unnaturally serene environment for the player to explore. The highlights of the experience stem from these moments of exploration, where natural jump scares and a sense of uneasy dread fill the player with each step.

Horror can be especially effective in VR, with Altered Echoes doing a great job of delivering on the concept by featuring freaky threats, unsettling locations, and an ever-present feeling that something is watching you. The Tim Burton-esque visuals of the series are translated well to the VR space, with Iconik Studio finding the right pacing of intense chases, slower puzzles, and awe-inspiring visuals to reflect the original games. It’s one of the more naturally engrossing VR horror games I’ve played to date, at least in terms of the pure aesthetic.

Wobbly Gameplay Shakes Up A Strong Horror Experience

The immersion is broken somewhat by the game’s underlying design, unfortunately. While the scoring and designs do a great job of crafting a larger world to explore, the actual nitty-gritty game design has some unfortunate hiccups that distract from the stronger elements of the game. Puzzles litter the map, but the controls for actually picking up or moving items can feel somewhat stunted. It’s easy while running in certain locations, to get caught up in a piece of the environment, slowing down movement in unexpected ways. Interacting with items and the world at large can feel wonky. While little moments of pushing aside floating objects to clear a path feel natural, actually solving some of the puzzles can be cumbersome.

The movement even becomes a bit harder when challenges force the player to move horizontally. One of the game’s best sequences highlights this challenge, with players trapped in a school while a monstrous teacher roams the room. The tension of sneaking around her is terrific, with her eventual full transformation into an almost snakelike being working tremendously from the VR perspective. However, actually racing up the tower of books by climbing can be frustrating, as the actual holds can give way easily. It’s not enough of a problem to sink the game, and the tension remains tight enough that players stay invested, but it does add a layer of frustration to the experience that undercuts the immersive qualities of the game.

Horror Fans Will Be Absorbed With Little Nightmares’ VR Adventure

Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes largely delivers on its immersive approach to the creepy video game series, with plenty of unsettling turns, strange visuals, and reality-bending environments to create a genuinely haunting experience. While the reliance on jump scares and puzzle game design might detract from the replayability of the game in the long run, Altered Echoes is effective enough in the moment to be very effective. The relatively tight run-time fits the episodic nature of the level design, with dread effectively transforming into terror at various points throughout the game.

The actual puzzle design is effective and leans into that sense of natural exploration, giving players more reason to take in the creepy sights and sounds. Composer Christian Björklund does a great job enhancing the narrative through subtle touches and effective musical stings. While the game itself suffers from some control issues, it’s never so distracting that it can fully undo the effective moments of immersion that Altered Echoes delivers. While the purposefully ambiguous and thematically heavy story might be a tad opaque for some players, there’s enough craft and tension in Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes to make it a must-play game for horror fans.

A Meta 3 code for Little Nightmare VR: Altered Echoes was provided to ComicBook.com for the purposes of this review.