168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Bandai Namco unveiled 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Little Nightmares 3 earlier this week at 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Gamescom’s Opening Night Liveꦕ, and the trailer had Little Nightmares written all over it. There were small children running through a big scary world. There was a creepy giant baby. There was eerie music that the characters tinkled out by jumping across the keys of a massive toy piano.
It's impressive how familiar it feels given that it's being developed by a new studio. Tarsier, the team behind the first two games in the series has moved on to a new IP, opening the door for a new studio to take the reins on this one. And it just so happens that Bandai Namco got one of the best developers currently working in horror to take over.
That's right, Little Nightmares 3 is being created by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Supermassive Games, the team behind 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Until Dawn, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Dark Pictures Anthology, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Quarry. The trailer is understated about this new direction. It drops Supermassive's logo at the beginning, but I think it deserves more. Bandai Namco could keep the trailer exactly the same, but throw in title cards pumping the game up as, “From the studio that brought you Until Dawn, The Dark Pictures Anthology, and The Quarry,” and it would go a long way toward selling the idea that this is a team-up between two horror powerhouses.
As strange as I find the decision to not make a big deal of Supermassive’s involvement, I find it significantly stranger that Supermassive is involved at all. This kind of move rarely happens in games. When The Chinese Room took over from 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Amnesia: The Dark Descent developer Frictional Games for its sequel, A Machine for Pigs, it was an example of a less established team taking over for a more established team, and that’s something that has happened often throughout the history of video games. If a developer wants to try something new but the publisher doesn’t want to let a valuable franchise lay dormant, it's not unusual for a new studio to take over to keep the name alive.
Traveller’s Tales took over from 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Naughty Dog for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex and Spyro went through similar growing pains with Enter the Dragonfly, as Insomniac moved onto 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ratchet & Clank. This is the way these things usually go — a successful studio passes its money-making IP 🍌on to a smaller developer that’s looking to level up.
But, what’s happening with Little Nightmares 3 is weirder.🐟 Supermassive Games is, arguably, a more well-known developer than Tarsier. It broke through with Until Dawn eight years ago, launch🦄ed a new franchise with The Dark Pictures, and released a new standalone horror game last year with The Quarry. It’s a little strange that it’s taking over a smaller studio’s series. There is a connection between Tarsier and Supermassive — Supermassive handled the next-gen port of Little Nightmares 2, so this is a continuation of that preexisting relationship.
Still, it’s weird to see an established studio taking over from another established studio. It isn’t unprecedented — Max Payne fans will remember that Rockstar, which had published the first two games in the series, took over as developer for Max Payne 3 — but it’s still pretty weird. And if there's one slightly silver lining in the consolidated landscape that capitalism has wrought, it's that we can get studios trading IP just to see what happens. Let's get Double Fine on a new Fallout. Let's get Treyarch making Psychonauts 3. Let's get Sucker Punch resurrecting Jak and Daxter. Let it rip.