Reanimal Reviews
Reanimal once again proves, if proof were even necessary, the strong authorial identity of a development studio finally unleashed, free to express itself without softening or diluting its vision. Reanimal is an auteur horror experience: deeply cryptic and not easy to decode, yet a bold and genuinely rare work within its genre.
Review in Italian | Read full review
REANIMAL is a fantastic co-op game for the Nintendo Switch 2, running at 60 fps most of the time. The simple, minimalistic controls make it a breeze to play with Joy-Cons shared between two players. It’s also an excellent gateway horror game for kids to get into since it’s easy to pick up and play and feels responsive as hell.
REANIMAL continues everything great that we expect from the developer, but the short length and irritatingly small details hold it back a bit.
Outstanding Rated M for Mature survival horror cinematic platformer on Nintendo Switch 2
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Review in Russian | Read full review
It's also nice to see that the game’s performance is outstanding, and the co-op aspect is one of the highlights. Yes, it’s not a very long game, but it tells a very refreshing story that we can easily connect with challenging moments in our lives. Plus, mechanics like scuba diving or driving break the mold, while offering yet another way to experience this troublesome, yet beautiful world they created.
REANIMAL is an interesting game for players. And that means all players, because the game is so simple that literally anyone can play it – even someone who has no experience with gaming.
Review in Polish | Read full review
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Review in Arabic | Read full review
Tarsier picks up where it left off. They've once again done a great job with the atmosphere and storytelling. The only drawback is that they've been stingy this time, making the game quite short. It would have been better if they had made the main game a bit longer instead of saving a significant portion of the content for expansions.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Reanimal is a standout addition to the survival horror genre, building upon the successful foundation established by Little Nightmares while confidently carving out its own identity. By refining the tense atmosphere, environmental storytelling, and unsettling creature design that made its predecessor so memorable, it delivers a more focused and immersive experience. The result is not only a meaningful evolution of a proven formula, but also one of the most impressive indie releases of the year.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Reanimal is an engaging yet familiar experience that, thanks to its artistic atmosphere, vividly portrays decay, death, and despair. While its artistic approach is admirable, the game could have performed far better in terms of level design, the depth of its gameplay mechanics, and certain technical aspects. If you enjoyed similar games like the first two Little Nightmares games, you will enjoy this one too.
Review in Persian | Read full review
It feels like we've been waiting for it for a long time, but Little Nightmares dev Tarsier Studios has finally delivered its next game. Unsurprisingly, Reanimal feels very much like Little Nightmares in all but name. While it doesn't have the strongest narrative, stellar visuals, an eerie atmosphere and excellent environmental puzzles all more than make up for it.
REANIMAL on Nintendo Switch 2 marks a striking reinvention for Tarsier Studios, taking the studio’s talent for intimate horror and expanding it into a richer, more confident adventure. Tight controls, a smartly reactive camera and impressive AI make every escape and puzzle feel fair, while the island’s layered design blends openness with subtle guidance to create a world that rewards curiosity without losing momentum. It’s a bold step beyond the Little Nightmares formula and a clear statement of what Tarsier can achieve on its own terms.
It's neither punishing nor oppressively surreal, offering nothing that hasn't been done before better and quirkier. Atmosphere can only go so far I'm afraid.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Reanimal delivers a tense, visually striking survival-horror experience in the vein of Little Nightmares. Its cooperative gameplay, claustrophobic levels, and subtle storytelling keep players on edge, while hidden collectibles extend the 6'8 hour runtime. Though it doesn't reinvent the wheel, it refines the series' formula with style and atmosphere.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
REANIMAL represents a visceral and larger-scale evolution of the formula established by Tarsier Studios in Little Nightmares. While the title disappoints due to its brevity, it shines through its world design, which utilizes visual communication to guide the player organically through an intriguing horror universe. The experience is further elevated by an exemplary cooperative mode, featuring accessible options like Friend's Pass and local co-op.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Reanimal is a disturbing and visually meticulous déjà-vu, where gameplay lacks courage and co-op isn't fully exploited. Still, better to play it in two than alone.
Review in Italian | Read full review
REANIMAL isn't just a great horror game: it's the kind of experience that lingers, hitting as hard as Little Nightmares, maybe even harder. It signals the start of a new chapter: a darker, more unsettling tale that masterfully confronts a truth we all recognize: no one outruns their fate… though that won't stop you from trying.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
REANIMAL's more 3-dimensional approach to its horror puzzle-adventure gameplay really supercharges the scares and sense of exploration. 😨
By the time we reach the end of REANIMAL, its greatest strength is impossible to miss: this is a horror game built on conviction. Tarsier Studios takes the sensibilities that have defined its work for years and carries them into an entirely new universe, once again finding fear in distorted imagery, oppressive spaces, grotesque creatures, and the uneasy feeling that the world around us has somehow gone wrong. REANIMAL is not interested in mechanical complexity for its own sake. Its priorities lie elsewhere, in the places where Tarsier has always been most confident: atmosphere, visual storytelling, exploration, and the emotional connection between its characters. For the most part, that focus pays off. The island is where that vision comes together most convincingly. It is far more than a backdrop for the story, functioning instead as a constantly shifting expression of the nightmare itself. Flooded facilities, ruined structures, forests, open water, and decaying interiors each possess their own visual language while remaining part of the same unsettling whole. Tarsier's creature design is every bit as effective. The monsters are grotesque without becoming excessive, and their impact often comes from the way they are revealed rather than simply from what they look like. A distant silhouette, an unfamiliar sound, a movement glimpsed at the edge of the frame: REANIMAL understands that what we imagine can be more frightening than anything placed directly in front of us. That confidence extends to its two protagonists. The relationship between the Boy and the Sister is never reduced to exposition; it is communicated through the way they move, react, help one another, and refuse to face the island alone. In co-op, that relationship becomes even more tangible. The shared camera can be awkward, particularly when the pace accelerates, but the underlying design philosophy is remarkably coherent. REANIMAL does not simply allow two players to inhabit the same world. It asks them to inhabit the nightmare together. Solving a puzzle, navigating a dangerous space, or escaping a creature becomes a shared act of survival, giving the cooperative mode an emotional dimension that many horror games never manage to achieve. If there is a clear gap between REANIMAL's ambitions and its execution, it is found in the depth of its mechanics. Exploration, puzzles, stealth, combat, and chase sequences are all handled with a strong sense of pacing, and the campaign benefits from knowing when to introduce an idea and when to move on. Nothing is given enough time to become particularly exhausting. The downside is that very little is given enough time to become genuinely sophisticated, either. The puzzles rarely demand more than careful observation, stealth remains relatively straightforward, and combat never develops into a substantial system in its own right. That is a limitation, but not necessarily a contradiction of the game's design. REANIMAL clearly does not want us to spend hours mastering a combat system or solving elaborate environmental puzzles. Its mechanics are there to keep the journey moving, to make us interact with the world, and to shape the rhythm between moments of discovery and moments of danger. The problem is simply that the extraordinary richness of the world sometimes makes us wish there were more beneath our feet mechanically. Tarsier has created a world we want to examine; the game does not always give us equally compelling reasons to engage with it on a systemic level. The story occupies similarly uncertain ground. Its reliance on imagery, symbolism, and environmental storytelling is one of its most appealing qualities, and there is genuine pleasure in being trusted to interpret rather than being handed an explanation for everything we encounter. Some of REANIMAL's most memorable moments work precisely because they leave questions hanging in the air. They encourage us to look back, reconsider what we have seen, and search for meaning in recurring images and seemingly insignificant details. Yet not every unanswered question feels equally purposeful. Some mysteries deepen the world; others leave us wishing the narrative had gone one step further. The issue is not ambiguity itself, but the balance between suggestion and development. REANIMAL is at its best when it gives us enough material to form our own interpretation. It is less successful when an idea feels introduced only to disappear before it has had the opportunity to fully resonate. The result is a story that can be haunting and thought-provoking, but occasionally frustrating in its refusal to provide the context certain moments seem to deserve. Still, those shortcomings are ultimately secondary to what Tarsier accomplishes so consistently well. REANIMAL is a game with an unmistakable voice. It does not need elaborate systems to establish its identity, nor does it rely on constant shocks to maintain its horror. Its environments, creature design, lighting, sound, pacing, and character relationships are all working toward the same objective. Very few elements exist simply for spectacle. Almost everything serves the mood. And that is why the experience works as well as it does. REANIMAL understands that horror is not necessarily about making the player feel powerful, nor is it about constantly asking them to overcome increasingly complex challenges. Sometimes it is about making a place feel wrong. It is about hearing something before we see it, entering a room we immediately want to leave, or catching a glimpse of something that our mind continues to reconstruct long after it has disappeared from view. Tarsier remains exceptionally good at creating those moments. There are imperfections, of course. The occasional technical hiccup and camera issue can disrupt the otherwise meticulous presentation, while the relative simplicity of the gameplay and the openness of the narrative will not satisfy everyone. But none of these issues obscures what REANIMAL is trying to achieve. This is not a horror game built around depth for depth's sake. It is a tightly authored journey through a world designed to unsettle us, and its greatest achievements come from the precision with which that world has been designed. We went into REANIMAL with high expectations. Tarsier Studios had already shown us how distinctive its approach to horror could be, and the prospect of watching that sensibility evolve within a completely new universe was more than enough to make us curious. Now, having reached the end of the journey, we can say with confidence that those expectations were not misplaced. REANIMAL may not have the depth to match the extraordinary richness of its presentation, and its story occasionally leaves us wanting answers that never arrive. But those are not the things we are most likely to remember. We will remember the island. We will remember the creatures moving through the darkness. We will remember the sound of something approaching before we could see it. And we will remember two children trying to hold on to one another while everything around them falls apart. That, ultimately, is where REANIMAL finds its greatest success. Tarsier Studios has not created the deepest horror adventure on the market, nor has it delivered a flawless one. It has created something more specific: a carefully authored, visually extraordinary nightmare with a voice all its own. And after spending hours inside it, that nightmare is difficult to shake.