Little Nightmares 3 was one of the biggest game announcements to come out from Gamescom last month. With the announcement came the reveal that Supermassive Games, known for Until Dawn and The Quarry, being the developers of the new sequel.

There have been other features that have come out to light, such as the inclusion of online multiplayer, yet they’ve also revealed the decision to exclude the ability to play local co-op in the game.

Little Nightmares 3 game director Wayne Garland talked up their reasoning for not implementing the usually demanded feature in the game.

“We’ve been asked questions about online versus couch co-op.” Garland said to Gamesradar. “Couch is something that we considered, but again, when you come back to the atmosphere and the immersion that we’re trying to elicit through Little Nightmares, I think it was important for us that we stuck to our online co-op only rather than traditional more party aspects.”

Of course, the company has experience in implementing such a feature as shown in previous games they’ve developed, such as the aforementioned titles as well as The Dark Pictures Anthology. So this is certainly a choice they’ve deliberately made.

What do you think of this decision? Is it unfortunate to lose such a feature for the sake of “atmosphere and immersion”? Or doe its exclusion not affect you in any way?

Little Nightmares 3 is in development for Windows PC (via Steam), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PS5. A release is set for sometime in 2024.