REANIMAL Review: The Nightmare That Pulled Us In and Wouldn’t Let Go
A tense, emotional, and wildly immersive horror adventure that kept us hooked from the first chase to the twisted ending.
REANIMAL is one of those games where the moment it was announced, we already knew we had to check it out. It’s from the original creators of Little Nightmares 1 and 2, which are already creepy enough, so from the first trailer all we were trying to figure out was: what is going on?! When the demo dropped during Steam Next Fest back in October, we were shook. Lowkey, it felt like forever waiting for the full release because after escaping that first encounter in the demo, we needed to know what happened next.
What makes REANIMAL so uncanny and strangely captivating is how little they showed before launch. It really was just a small piece of what we were about to experience. After finishing the full game in one sitting, we immediately wanted more. Not because it was short (our full recording was under four hours), but because the world and the character building had us locked in from beginning to end. The game’s density, atmosphere, and pacing made it feel like a full‑on journey as we followed these characters trying to save their friends while escaping soul‑hungry abominations, watching a world decay around them, and trying to hold onto whatever hope was left.
Not going to lie, horror games aren’t usually our thing. The last one I personally played, and never finished, was Alien Isolation. My brother’s last big horror game was Resident Evil Village, so he definitely has more experience than me with that genre. Maybe it’s because those games give you weapons and at least offer a way to fight back. When you’re dealing with the environment itself and have zero way to defend yourself, that tension hits different.
But creepy games like Limbo and Inside? I loved those and finished them in one sitting. They throw you into their world with barely any explanation, just a quick “here’s how to jump” and “here’s how to interact,” and suddenly you’re running into whatever ominous nightmare waits ahead. So I kinda knew REANIMAL was going to end up on that same list for me.
Before we even started playing, we already had chills. That nervous excitement of “oh man, here comes another wild experience” set in early, and what makes REANIMAL stand out is how aggressive its story and atmosphere can get. The game throws you into areas that switch up so wildly that it keeps everything feeling unpredictable and puts you straight into fight‑or‑flight mode. One moment you’re creeping through a theater frozen in time, then you’re climbing a lonely lighthouse that feels like it’s barely holding itself together, and suddenly you’re underwater in this eerie Bioshock‑style space where the silence hits harder than the creatures hunting you. Sometimes you’re even cruising across the island on a small boat, getting the sense that every new stretch of land is somehow worse than the last.
Where REANIMAL truly shines is in how it makes every environment feel lived in, dangerous, and unsettling. You move carefully because it constantly feels like taking one wrong step might wake up something you really don’t want to meet. One of the early moments has you hiding from a skin‑walker‑looking human who’s searching for someone you’re trying to rescue. The enemies actually look around for you, which makes the world feel unnervingly aware of your presence. You’ll stumble across flat human skins lying around, or sneak past someone ironing a meatless human shell as if that’s perfectly normal. Moments like these make the world feel like it has been suffering for decades, surviving on fear, destruction, and whatever scraps of life are left.
The beauty in the horror of REANIMAL is what makes it unforgettable. You’ll see piles of remains under moonlight, the dark ocean where the next safe area is barely lit ahead, fog rolling in while seagulls circle overhead, and an abandoned movie theater where the film still plays even though no one is alive to watch it. Scenes like these give you a small glimpse into what caused all this. And as the game takes you from one broken place to another, the further you go the more you start questioning what actually happened here, how much humanity is even left, and why nature feels like the only thing still standing. It slowly hits you that whatever went wrong didn’t just destroy people - it swallowed the entire world.
You end up traveling anywhere and everywhere just to escape this disastrous place. And the further you go, the more you start questioning what actually happened here, how much humanity is even left, and why it feels like nature is the last thing still standing. It slowly sinks in that whatever went wrong didn’t just destroy people, it swallowed the whole world.
As you progress, things only get more chaotic. You start running into creatures that look like they crawled straight out of someone’s twisted experiment, and you realize the whole world isn’t completely gone. Some animals are still normal, just living their lives surrounded by the disaster, while others are transformed into horrific, mesmerizing designs that feel like an evolution gone wrong, almost like something David from the Alien movies would create.
The moments where the game forces you to figure out how to take these things down are wild to play through, and every encounter feels like it’s testing how ready you are to survive whatever comes next. Something that really made this experience stand out is that there are actually moments where you can defend yourself. You and your friend can team up and fight off enemies trying to attack you. At first, it gave us a tiny bit of comfort, like “okay, we got this,” but the more we played, the more we realized having the ability to fight only meant we were heading straight into even more chaotic situations without even noticing it.
What surprised us in this game was the characters actually talking to each other. Little Nightmares didn’t have that, so hearing them communicate makes you feel the bond between them and why they came back to save the ones still trapped in this broken world. If you play this all in one sitting, it honestly feels like an intense interactive movie. Each chapter hits differently, and even though parts were disturbing and the ending was twisted, I’d absolutely replay it (not sure if my brother will do the same). The world has this eerie weight, but the game still gives you just enough calm moments to breathe before throwing you into something terrifying again.
Now, even though the game did so much right, there were a few issues that occasionally pulled us out of the immersion. None of them were game‑breaking, and honestly some were pretty funny. Near the end, my brother’s PC dropped frames, probably because the graphics seemed to be cranked higher than in the demo (and is using Unreal Engine 5). So here we are, trying to run for our lives at like 10 frames per second, and it was rough.
Opening and prying doors with the crowbar could get glitchy too. Characters would get stuck, we’d have to wiggle around to make it work, or doors would immediately slam shut after being opened. Jumping obstacles was another thing. We know we had the momentum to make some of those jumps, but we’d fall straight down like nothing happened. Load times didn’t help either in certain areas where we died and respawned. And don’t get me started on autosaves not keeping track of collectibles if one of us died after grabbing them. That was a struggle because it wouldn’t save our progress unless we retraced our exact steps and re‑collected everything the same way.
You don’t even need multiple copies to play with a friend thanks to couch co‑op and the Friend Pass. The Friend Pass lets someone play the entire game with you even if they don’t own it, which is honestly a great feature. The downside is that it doesn’t give achievements to the person using it, and there were moments where I knew I earned one but nothing popped up for my brother.
It would also be nice if the person playing through the Friend Pass could save their own progress and collectibles. Some people experienced connection issues at launch, but for us everything was smooth. We never disconnected once, just a few frame drops near the end. But even with those small issues, the game was still incredibly fun. Those moments only pulled us out briefly from the immersion, but we still continued to enjoy the game.
REANIMAL is truly a game I think everyone should try, even if horror isn’t usually your thing. It pulls you into its world, the controls feel solid, and the whole experience stays engaging from start to finish. Overall, it was an amazing time. After seeing the ending, I wanted even more. I still want a deeper understanding as to why everything is happening, what caused the world to fall apart so much, and what else is hiding out there. And with three story DLCs on the way, I’m excited to see what Tarsier Studios does next.
REANIMAL gets a solid 8.5 sheep out of 10.