The game begins on water, with you following dimly lit buoys; you reach a beach and open washed-up suitcases to find a key. From there, you venture into what seems like a hydroelectric facility. Inside, there are light puzzles to solve as you move forward, though nothing so taxing as to impede your progress for very long. The pair you\u2019re controlling (referred to simply as \u201cBoy\u201d and \u201cGirl\u201d) can jump and grab objects; later, they wield a crowbar, useful for prying open doors or whacking smaller enemies. If you have played either a Little Nightmares game or a title by Playdead (the Danish studio\u2019s landmark first game Limbo or 2016 classic Inside<\/a>), then the action will feel instantly familiar.<\/p>\n The revelatory moments arrive via finely crafted details: These child protagonists carefully and reassuringly usher one another into each newly discovered room. I love how upon each restart after dying (perhaps in the jaws of a monstrous foe or by tumbling down a sheer drop), the duo are shown hugging one another \u2014 the only comfort they have in this terrible world.<\/p>\n Yet these children are made of steely stuff. For every panicked sequence fleeing a gigantic sheep down a blood-red corridor, there is a moment when it is these youngsters who are doing the chasing. Reanimal, like forebears dating all the way back to 1991\u2019s Another World, delights in showing you enemy figures loping ominously off-screen through some crack or hole in the wall. You must follow, plucking up the courage to trail these beasts into inky shadows.<\/p>\n Reanimal takes some time revealing where its strikingly macabre, exquisitely haunted images are leading. The key moment occurs with the arrival of a soldier wearing a Brodie helmet popular in World War I; a few scenes later, you discover coastal artillery. Tarsier toyed with wartime motifs in its Little Nightmares games, notably the pile of shoes that recalled the heaps of belongings found by Allied soldiers at Nazi extermination camps in West Germany. Reanimal\u2019s allegory is more explicit: At one particularly gruesome moment, you must evade the shots of a sniper stationed high in a building. Fail to find cover quickly enough and the young boy or girl\u2019s body is ripped apart by a speeding bullet.<\/p>\n Image: Tarsier Studios<\/p>\n Tarsier\u2019s latest operates in a different tonal zone to the jingoistic, popcorn warfare of the Call of Duty series and the amped-up-to-11 absurdity of Battlefield. Its solemnity evokes the trench sequences from the first Death Stranding<\/a> game and finely calibrated dread of 2024\u2019s underrated survival-horror title Conscript<\/a> and action-adventure Hell Is Us<\/a>.<\/p>\n That said, for all Reanimal\u2019s achievements, it falls just a little short of greatness. The game doesn\u2019t possess the same crystalline, airtight polish of Playdead\u2019s work. Some transitions between scenes are a little abrupt, and on a few occasions, I had to reload because of a glitching character. Such is the literal darkness of the game, coupled with the choices of perspective, that distinguishing between the fore and background is a struggle; cue the odd accidental fall.<\/p>\n None of this greatly impacts what is a frequently bold and brilliant game. Since 2017, Tarsier has made children\u2019s nightmares for grown-ups; despite its young protagonists, Reanimal is a nightmare wholly born from the anxieties of adults. It seems to speak to both the horrors of the 20th century and our barbarous present in which large-scale on-the-ground conflicts between sovereign nations have regretfully reemerged.<\/p>\n I\u2019m still running the story\u2019s deeper meaning through my head. But regardless of the conclusions I eventually draw, there is no denying the sheer verve and power of the images that Tarsier summons on screen. Bodies \u2014 human or otherwise \u2014 disappear into bodies; children are doomed to wield the weapons of grown-ups (if they are not torn asunder by them first). The game also harbors a fascination with the spectacle of popular entertainment, delivering showstopping moments in both a cinema and theater.<\/p>\n Reanimal does not flinch; this action-platformer delivers a parade of atrocities you cannot take your eyes off of.<\/p>\n Reanimal launches February 13th on the PS5, Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2.<\/p>\n Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Lewis GordonClose<\/p>\n Lewis Gordon<\/p>\n Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All by Lewis Gordon<\/a><\/p>\n EntertainmentClose<\/p>\n Entertainment<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Entertainment<\/a><\/p>\n Games ReviewClose<\/p>\n Games Review<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/REANIMAL_Screenshot_7.jpg\"\/)
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