Reanimal creators reveal how the game got its name

2 hours ago 1

Published Feb 13, 2026, 7:00 AM EST

Reanimal is a strange beast indeed

A scary sheep illuminated by red light in Reanimal.

Reanimal, the latest atmospheric horror game by Little Nightmares developer Tarsier Studios, is a feast for the eyes. But behind foggy villages, eerie waterways, and appalling monsters lie many difficult design challenges, particularly in the form of unusual camerawork.

In search of the secrets behind their cinematic masterpiece, I sat down with Tarsier Studios' co-founder Andreas Johnsson and narrative director David Mervik over a video call to discuss the creative process that led to Reanimal.

Reanimal is a story about orphans in a boat. On top of that, it's a story about violence, hope, and an incredibly brave brother and sister duo who risk their lives to save their friends. But although their adventure is paired with plenty of animal encounters (reanimated or not), the title represents the game's feel more than its features — which is why, I'm told, it's not titled "Orphans in a Boat."

"Originally, we wanted to call the game Animal," Mervik said. "There's something that we really liked about the layers of meaning in that word. If you call someone an animal, that's not a compliment. At the same time, animals can be cute, animals can be pure and innocent, and animals can be violated and defiled, depending on where they end up. So the things that spring out of just being an animal really, really resonated with us for what we explore in this game."

However, naming the game "Animal" would've posed search engine problems, as Googling that word would get you a billion other hits before landing on the game. To still inspire the emotions linked to the word "animal," the developers decided to go with "Reanimal" instead.

"There are elements of reanimation in [Reanimal], there are elements of anima, and there's obviously animal," Mervik said.

The children find a pig's head in Reanimal.

Similarly, Reanimal's narrative style leaves ample room for interpretation. Rather than follow a story that explains its plot, Mervik said he would much rather mull it over. "That's the way I like us to tell stories as well. I think there's not going to be a really, really broad spread of theories [about Reanimal], but you never know with the people that play our games."

That said, Reanimal's story is more plot-heavy than the studio’s comparatively minimalist Little Nightmares games. "I wanted to challenge myself to give people a bit more. That's why there's a bit of dialogue in it as well," Mervik explained. "So you let people learn a bit more and see what they do with what they get. Little Nightmares one and two, they're just completely wordless, and there's an almost simple storyline, in terms of what happens. People have filled in those gaps, whereas here, I wanted to see if we could dig in a bit more and have a very specific thing that's happened and let people kind of build their story around that."

Finding that balance was tricky: "It's a way more stressful way of telling stories and games," Mervik said. "It would be so much easier to [use] the classic way of telling stories."

The one thing Mervik wanted to avoid is what he calls exposition dialogue, or in its worst form, second-screen entertainment. "Second-screen programming is like Netflix. If you watch Netflix now, they expect you to be on the phone doing something else, and so you can never be expected to know what's going on. They have to keep telling you what's going on so that you can look up from your phone and go, 'Ah, yeah, yeah, no, I get it.' And I just think that's a horrible, horrible development in storytelling."

An example of Reanimal's visual storytelling, one that diverges from techniques in Little Nightmares, is the character design. Instead of wearing a bright yellow jacket that stands in stark contrast to the eerie world, Reanimal's protagonists almost blend in with the scenery.

The two orphans walk down a hallway in Reanimal.

"For Little Nightmares, it was very much about trying to show the player that the kids do not belong here, so you needed that kind of contrast in this game," Johnsson explained.

Reanimal, however, is the exact opposite: "They're of this world, aren't they? That's the difference," Mervik said. "It's like this world is in a different form than the one they grew up in, but it's their world still. One of the terms we used very early on with everything is that it needs to feel grounded and not like a fantasy land. There's a fantastical element to the way we built up Little Nightmares, whereas here, there's more of an edge of realism."

The most innovative part of Reanimal's visual storytelling, however, is its use of a dynamic camera. Unlike Little Nightmares, which sticks to the same sideways angle throughout the game, Reanimal's viewpoint always shifts, turns, and zooms in or out along with the changing scenery.

"We wanted to do something that felt grandiose," Johnsson said. "With this kind of camera, you can really zoom out and you can really zoom in, and you can make sure that the players look at the things that you want them to look at. It's a completely different kind of level design than what we were used to with Little Nightmares."

A cinematic view of a square with a tree in Reanimal.

"We put a lot of effort into composition as well, how we present these kinds of key memorable scenes," Mervik added. "Each of them kind of demands a different perspective, whether it's mother coming up the staircase, just that quiet shot of the kids on the bus stop, or the desolate beach scene.

"So this camera needed to be able to wheel around and do our bidding, almost. One kind of camera wouldn't really have worked. It was a lot of work put into that to make sure that we could, whatever scene we wanted to create, we could show it to the best of our ability."

But between purely cinematic moments like the scene at the bus stop, there's more to it than finding the prettiest angle. "You've got to put gameplay at the center of everything. It can't only be, but this looks cool and doesn't work it all. We never forget what we're here to do, which is make games. So the two have to really speak to each other in those situations. The idea comes first," Mervik explained.

As Johnsson added, "It is quite limiting when it comes to game design. Especially when you want to do something in co-op and you only have one camera, no split-screen, it's difficult to design interesting things. The easy way out would've been to have split-screen so one person can run around and get another camera angle and do something, [while the other] one does whatever."

A monster walks through a cinema in Reanimal.

Although co-op mode thus made it harder to implement a dynamic camera, it was, at the same time, one of the reasons why the system was so important to the team. "We did try [split-screen], but it just felt so flat, it didn't feel scary," Johnsson said. "So that's why we decided on this same kind of camera in all game modes."

Though it wouldn't have forced players to stay within frame together, Mervik agreed that split-screen would've clashed with the idea of being scared together. "You don't get that same immersion into the world, and you don't get to have that sense of space."

Another "easy way out" might've been to use single-player only, but that was clearly never an option. In fact, Mervik and Johnsson feel that couch co-op, rather than solo play, is the best way to experience Reanimal.

"We love the couch co-op best of all, because there's another element to it," Mervik said. "There is that kind of human element where you have someone who does the unexpected. Or something fun happens and you get to enjoy it with another person. Whereas by necessity, the AI companion has to be a little bit more predictable and not lead the way, which would be super annoying if you're just following the AI bodies throughout the game."

The children use diving equipment to walk underwater in Reanimal.

That brings us to yet another careful balancing act; making the computer-driven second player in solo mode helpful without being too helpful — or too clumsy. I recall a moment during my playthrough when I dodged a haunted car, but my computer-driven companion was too slow and got overrun.

"So most of the time, what you would do is make sure that the AI would not get killed. Because if that happens, in most cases, that would feel very bad for the player," Johnsson explained. "You always want to make sure that the player feels that they have control and that the game doesn't feel broken."

"Then you always have some special cases where you want to signal the player that [they're] a bit too slow here or they're going the wrong way or something. And then you need to, well, [find] different ways of solving that. One would be to [decide], 'Okay, now the AI gets killed,' but most of the time you want to make sure that it's in control of the player," he said.

This is a polite way of saying that, although my AI companion screwed up, the skill issue lies with me — all right, point taken!

Since the camera forms such an essential component of storytelling, it also serves as a tool to crank up the horror, by, for example, following the players into a cramped space. The result is that Reanimal should be darker, scarier, and more violent than the Little Nightmares games, though, Mervik explained, "We had a bit more wiggle room when we decided to go co-op." After all, you tend to feel less scared when playing together. "The first thing you do is kind of laugh if you get a bit scared, and so it punctures that kind of atmosphere in the room."

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