The thing I’ll remember most about my REANIMAL demo at Gamescom isn’t the puzzles, or even the monsters. It’s the moment when both of us, sitting shoulder to shoulder, leaned forward at the exact same time. The chase was on, panic set in, and suddenly we weren’t two strangers anymore, we were a team.
That’s what REANIMAL nails right from the start. This is horror you don’t just witness, but share. The demo was couch co-op only, played on a single screen with a roaming camera that never split our perspective. It’s a bold design choice, and it makes everything feel more cinematic. No dollhouse framing like Little Nightmares, no awkward split down the middle. Instead, the camera glides, zooms, and shifts to keep both players in frame, and while it sometimes forces you back together, it rarely feels restrictive. More often than not, it reinforces that REANIMAL is about sticking close, about surviving together.
The atmosphere hit immediately. Grey, muted environments laced with piercing beams of light created a visual language that felt oppressive yet hauntingly beautiful. The art direction doesn’t flirt with fairy tale elements the way Little Nightmares did, it dives headfirst into grotesque horror. Human skins hanging like warning flags, shadows twisting into something unrecognizable, and creatures that don’t just creep, they overwhelm. At one point, we were sprinting across the roofs of moving trains, a massive, steroidal Slenderman bearing down on us. Scripted or not, it had us both gasping, clinging to our controllers, convinced we weren’t going to make it. That shared panic is where the game shines brightest.
It’s not all running, though. The demo blended in slower beats where we searched for keys, hunted down cart wheels, and fiddled with rusted machinery. Classic survival horror building blocks, sure, but the co-op twist changes the rhythm. You’re never solving things alone; you’re always negotiating who does what, syncing actions, and feeling that relief together when the way forward finally unlocks. It makes even simple puzzles feel heavier, more meaningful.
What impressed me most is how confidently REANIMAL already owns its identity. It doesn’t feel like a Little Nightmares clone, it feels like a next step. More visceral, more daring, and more unapologetically grotesque. The developers teased us about a boat section they clearly see as the crown jewel, and if that’s still being kept behind the curtain, then what we played was just the prologue to something bigger. The mix of tight corridors and wider, open spaces we did experience already suggested a game ready to expand its scope.
Walking away from the booth, I realized this demo gave me more than a look at a promising horror title. It gave me an experience, one defined by shared fear, shared relief, and the thrill of being caught in something unpredictable. REANIMAL doesn’t just want to scare you; it wants to bind you to whoever’s holding the second controller. And judging by the way my co-op partner and I walked out still talking about “that train chase,” I’d say it’s working.
