Little Nightmares is one of the best franchises I ever played, and Altered Echoes not only is just as good, it’s exactly what the franchise needed in every way.
Playing the previous games, one thing that always kind of drew you out of the experience was the fact you’re essentially watching it play out in a 3rd person view. This allowed the camera to zoom in and out, or pan around the room, and you got a decent perspective of how the world is much larger than the character. However in instances of danger, you didn’t really get the impact of being small because you were watching from an outside view. Occaisonally the camera would draw in tight to create a tense situation, but you as a player still felt “safe.”
Little Nightmares: Altered Echoes
RELEASE DATE: APRIL 24TH 2026
REVIEWED ON: PS5/ PSVR2
Developer: Iconic
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Heading into VR, this is the most dramatic and welcoming change in the franchise. You start off with a short scene that is similar to the older games, then it quickly puts you behind the eyes of one of the characters, Dark Six. Now you see the world from their point of view, and it’s absolutely brilliant in every way right from the first step. But the interesting change is simply the fact you can’t “escape” this point of view. Everything is seen from a short nature, and you can look around objects without physically doing it. There always seems to be something hiding in the shadows, and it’s frightening!
The way the rooms are all morph around you, and artistically designed furniture purposely set out to creep you out. How simple objects like toys and drawers are much larger than life. And more importantly, the absolutely horrific view of enemies towering over you will have your jaw drop before you turn to run for your life. This is exactly what the franchise needed, and whoever thought to throw it in VR deserves every raise in the book. The world of Little Nightmares transitions absolutely perfectly to VR in every way.
The franchise has always done a beautiful job of bringing atmosphere and dark aesthetics to life, but being shrunk down to character size you get even more impressed with it all. The way you always feel like you’re in danger is heightened, and the small amount of jumpscares literally had me doing double takes when I peaked through doors or windows. One instance I can highlight is when a door slightly opened. In the original games you can sometimes trick the camera to peek around the corner before going in. In this instance I couldn’t do that, so instead I found myself inching closer and closer to the door, with my head stretched as far as my body would physically let me. Then when I did finally get to see inside, I instantly ran in the opposite direction…. but there was nothing there!
Then you have the puzzles. I didn’t have any issues climbing, picking up objects, or any actionable movement. This makes solving puzzles so much better as things simply work as they should. Adding in physical movement is even better too, such as ducking under blades or crawling through small spaces. The game does a fantastic job of making you feel small, and it utilizes the whole space to get creative with twisting rooms around, and having you climb to get to certain areas. The best part is that the game is simply developed extremely well, so everything works as it should. I never came across an instance where something wasn’t working correctly, which often times has me get lost in other games, so everything always felt solvable.
The small drawbacks in gameplay that I have are the visual decisions the game makes. There is no smooth scrolling, and I’m personally more of a fan of that than the snap turning, but nothing too game breaking. I eventually got used to it, and mostly just turned my body physically to avoid using it. Then there is also a decision to put the hood over the character, which I understand is to further engage you with being the character, but it does get noticeably annoying. I would have preferred if the hood would fade in and out as you moved, or only appeared in scenes, instead of it constantly taking up a good portion of your viewable area. I do at least appreciate that they gave the vignette a reason to be included, unlike other games that randomly add it in with no context, I just wish I could disable it.
Both decisions are also rather odd since the game has several sequences where you’re falling, or going through a portal, which are highly dizzying to a new VR player (or someone that hasn’t touched their VR in a while). So I understand the decisions are for motion sickness, yet these scenes were still included with no accessibility option.
But other than two very small drawbacks, that they can easily address with an update, I have zero complaints for this game. It is easily the most polished VR experience I got to play on PSVR2, so polished that I’ve already gone back to enjoy it again. If you’re looking for your first VR game, or how VR games should be made, this is it. This is the game that would sell headsets.
But going beyond that, Little Nightmares simply transitions to VR better than any other game. The world design is simply perfect for this perspective. It literally teleports you to a new world, and the added emphasis on designing the world to warp around you as a player is just phenomenal.
I also rarely put my headphones in while playing VR as well, but I tested it again with Altered Echoes and my goodness, even that is incredible. I’m so happy that this wasn’t a half baked attempt to bring the game to VR. All the things that made the first two games incredible are done even better. I honestly enjoyed this experience more than even Little Nightmares 3.
As for story, the game does a terrific job of standing on its own. Little Nightmares has always done an incredible job of “show, don’t tell.” Altered Echoes wastes no time doing just that, and for fans of the series there is a familiar foe that starts the game, but beyond little easter eggs like that, there is no real reason to need to play the other games. That’s not to say you shouldn’t, this is one of the most incredible franchises on the market, but if this is your first Little Nightmares game you won’t be lost in the slightest. It does a good job of holding up its own weight in the series.
But like most of my favorite VR experiences, the only major gripe I have is that it’s over too soon. Like I’ve said with other great VR games, is this a good thing or a bad thing? I enjoyed my experience so much I was really sad when it ended. But the small compact package we got was so well polished from end to end that perhaps being shorter enabled this. My play time took around 5 hours, I feel like with my second run going rather quickly so far, you could easily “speed run” it in under 2 hours. Most of my 5 hour experience was for exploring and figuring out puzzles.
Overall Little Nightmares is now easily my favorite overall game, and now my favorite VR game too. They bridged this transition beautifully. Altered Echoes is an experience no gamer should pass up. Grab your friend’s VR headset, go buy one yourself, try this game.
