With Little Nightmares 3 still lurking in the shadows, horror fans are left clinging to their Mono plushies and replaying past nightmares. But fear not, plenty of eerie, atmospheric games are out there, just waiting to crawl under your skin. These titles scratch that exact same itch: unsettling stories and eerie worlds.
Here are five creepy games that could easily slip into the same twisted universe as Little Nightmares. From uncanny silhouettes to silent screams, these games don’t just walk in the dark, they waltz with it.
The Midnight Walk
If Little Nightmares is a silent scream wrapped in a children’s fable, The Midnight Walk is its fiery, poetic cousin. In this side-scrolling dark fantasy, you play as “the Burnt One,” a cloaked figure trudging through pitch-black landscapes lit only by a tiny, glowing companion named Potboy. (Yes, he’s exactly what he sounds like, and you will love him.) Much like Six and Mono’s eerie partnership, Potboy isn’t just a plot device, he’s your emotional anchor, your light in the dark, and, unfortunately, monster bait.
Every chapter is a metaphor-laden nightmare, focusing on themes like sacrifice, trust, and the fragile warmth of companionship. The gameplay mixes platforming with escort mechanics, but it never feels like a chore. Instead, it feels like guiding a matchstick through a thunderstorm: fragile, tense, and beautiful. If you miss the quiet storytelling and symbolic horror of Little Nightmares, this one’s practically a spiritual sibling.
Bendy and the Ink Machine
Take Little Nightmares’ childlike horror and shove it through a vintage cartoon filter soaked in ink, and you get Bendy and the Ink Machine. This first-person horror adventure plays out like Walt Disney’s worst acid trip. You return to your old animation studio only to find it dripping in goo and crawling with nightmare fuel, and not the kind you can just platform away from. Expect jump scares, puzzles, audio logs, and a growing sense that someone (or something) is watching.
Much like Little Nightmares, Bendy mixes nostalgia with psychological dread. The 1930s animation style is cheery on the surface but rotten underneath, mirroring the tonal whiplash of climbing through a toy room that doubles as a death trap. And just like Mono and Six, Henry’s descent isn’t about heroism, it’s about surviving a world that makes no sense, one where the walls bleed and the truth hides in grainy reels.
Yomawari: Night Alone
If Little Nightmares whispered its horrors, Yomawari: Night Alone leans in closer and makes you hold your breath. You play as a little girl lost in a nightmarish version of her hometown, looking for her sister and her dog. No combat. No weapons. Just a flashlight, the sound of your heartbeat, and way too many things that go bump in the night.
Where Little Nightmares made you feel small in a twisted industrial world, Yomawari traps you in something more personal: suburban horror soaked in Japanese folklore. It’s a game of tension, where hiding in bushes is your only defense, and your footsteps are too loud for comfort. The monsters are grotesque but often quiet, and that silence somehow makes everything worse. If you want that same eerie vulnerability, this one nails it.
Inside
From the developers of Limbo, Inside swaps grotesque monsters for a world that feels clinically cruel. You play as a boy trying to escape… something. What that something is becomes clear as you descend deeper into factory floors, human experiments, and waterlogged labs. It’s grim. It’s brilliant. It never explains itself, and that’s part of the horror.
Much like Little Nightmares, Inside is a 2.5D side-scroller where the narrative unfolds through the environment, not cutscenes. Death comes swiftly and creatively. Puzzles challenge your wit. And near the end? You become something you most definitely didn’t expect. (No spoilers, but it’s gloriously grotesque.) If you loved the surreal, haunting atmosphere of Little Nightmares and want something that’ll leave you unsettled long after the credits roll, Inside delivers in spades.
Limbo
Before Little Nightmares crawled into our nightmares, Limbo was already haunting our dreams. This minimalist platformer drops you into a monochrome forest where everything, literally everything, is trying to kill you. Giant spiders, gravity puzzles, and a general sense of “what the hell is going on”? It has it all.
Like Little Nightmares, Limbo tells its story without dialogue, letting its grim world do all the talking. Every puzzle solved feels like outwitting a sadistic puppet master. Every death (and there will be many) teaches you something, usually the hard way. It’s not just horror; it’s helplessness, and the tiny flicker of hope you stubbornly carry forward. If you’re craving another side-scrolling nightmare filled with symbolism and existential dread, Limbo is a must-play that paved the way for all the creepy platformers we love today.
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