The Making Of . . .​ Little Nightmares

How Tarsier curbed its creative hunger by daring to step out alone.

- Chris Chilling

One of Little Nightmares’ many blood-freezing moments comes during its final act, chillingly turning the player’s expectations on their head. Creeping around the quarters of an improbably tall, impossibly thin woman – referred to simply as The Lady – tiny, frail protagonist Six must smash a vase to obtain a key. By now, the player has come to expect any loud noises to prompt a clatter of footsteps as someone – or something – arrives to investigate, and will surely have hidden themselves accordingly. Instead, they’re greeted by an eerie silence, The Lady’s insistent, melodic humming having suddenly stopped. Eventually plucking up the courage to step out, Six emerges from her hiding place, only to find... nothing.

With hindsight, this sequence seems to reflect the understandable anxieties of a team releasing its first original property. Little Nightmares wasn’t Tarsier Studios’ debut, by any means: the Malmö-based developer had enjoyed a fruitful association with Sony for several years, working on DLC for three LittleBigPlanet games, as well as the series’ Vita entry and expanded remake Tearaway Unfolded. Various prototypes had been floating around the studio for some time (including unreleased adventure The City Of Metronome) but at the beginning of 2014, it finally had an idea it could make its own.