Little Nightmares – Realm of Gluttony

It’s time for another horror game review. This time it’s an indie title which I added to my library from the Lunar New Year sale this year. I actually enjoyed it more than DARQ, it’s another horror game that finds a way to either terrify or make you shudder without using the typical horror cliches like jumpscares and gore.

The story of Little Nightmares seems hard to follow at first. There’s no dialogue and it centers on a little girl known only as Six who is trying to escape a place called the Maw. No one knows what that place is in the beginning, only that it is inhabited by strange creatures that Six encounters, many of them are large and hostile and are looking for something to eat. Others are little beings trying to find a safe place to hide.

Six also experiences several severe bouts of hunger in her journey and every time she found a meal, the more ravenous she became to the point where she was eating things that she probably shouldn’t be eating!

Nowhere feels absolutely safe in this game as the only thing Six can do is run and hide from danger. The only thing she has equipped is a lighter which doesn’t do much against the enemies in this game. I hated the chapter with the blind janitor the most, he seems responsible for rounding up tiny prisoners like Six and the Nomes, or maybe even other children. It made me start wondering, is this a realm where children are captured and subjected to weird experiments or, are they cooked and devoured?

I couldn’t help but noticed that Six was solely focused on her own survival in this game, not once did she try to free anyone else she came across like when one child offered her some bread.

I also found the chapter with the twin chefs to be scary and challenging, like were those body bags in the room before the kitchen itself? These chefs appear to enjoy cooking meat the most and that was where I came to believe that the Maw is full of cannibals. It took me a few attempts to sneak past the chefs as unlike the janitor, I had to rely on sight and sound, whereas the janitor it was only the latter.

When I got to the guest area and saw all those obese humanoid creatures, that felt like one of the scariest parts of the game as more and more of them try to chase Six to eat her as well. That’s a lot of meat they’re consuming! It reminds me of some dreams I’ve had where I’m on the run from creatures that are all trying to take me for their next meal, I’m sure everyone has had a dream like that at some point in their lives. Hell, I even had a dream not too long ago that I was eaten by a creature in another game I’m playing!

The lady in this game seems like the main antagonist. She reminds me a lot of Elizabeth Bathory because of how she strives to be beautiful unlike everyone else in the Maw and does whatever it takes to retain that beauty. She looks like a geisha and hides her face behind a mask, but it’s the shattered mirrors everywhere that remind me of the countess, she still can’t look at herself no matter how much she does to maintain her appearance. Her motives are never revealed unless, of course, the DLCs I have will unveil some more of it and the Maw itself. Either way, once I play those, I’m sure I’ll get my answer.

So I firmly believe that after playing, Six is like an anti-hero to what she does in the end as she only cares about getting out alive. It’s a challenging game that emphasizes stealth but I couldn’t stop playing as I loved the visuals and the theme, it was terrifying in its own way and I can’t wait to explore more of its lore.