Little Nightmares #1 Comic Review

On April 28th, Tarsier Studios' creepy action-platformer, Little Nightmares, crept onto PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. I covered the game's release – although I've sadly not yet had the time to play the game for myself. Sad face. Fear not, Namco Bandai – the game's publisher – and Titan Comics have teamed up to shine a light on the many shadows of Little Nightmares with a four-issue run of comics.

Issue one features Six, the yellow-slickered protagonist of Little Nightmares, and how she ended up in the world of The Maw – the setting of the game itself. It plays out as a kind of prequel, following Six as she muses on everything she has been through, everything she has seen, and everything she has lost. It's all very dark. Six hasn't had an easy life... and she doesn't actually remember much of it.

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I sometimes found these musings hard to follow, as they seem to flow like a train of thought – liquid and hard to grasp – but I think that was maybe the point. Little Nightmares is all about evoking that sense of the unease, with its misshapen creatures and dark, eerie world, and that comes through perfectly on the pages of this comic. The art captures the twisted style of the game and its grotesque inhabitants, and the writing, which was more surreal than I'd normally enjoy, also plays its part in making reality feel just out of grasp, similar to Six's own memory.

The second half of the issue feels a little more solid in my opinion, as the narrative seems more coherent and structured. I learned something new about the character of Six and it made me want to know more about this unfortunate girl, as she huddles amidst similarly cloaked children – if that's what they are – not entirely welcome, but at least not alone anymore.

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The first issue of Little Nightmares has captured the feel of the game pretty perfectly and captured my interest at the same time. It reaches out from the shadows with its own character, twisted and surreal, and while I found it a little hard to follow at times, the combination of unsettling style and substance has me looking forward to the next issue.