Two horror games sit twenty-four years apart, and both hand you a second character to travel with. Yet the Little Nightmares 3 companion and ICO’s Yorda answer completely opposite questions. One partner is a problem you carry. The other is a toolbox you call on. Supermassive Games released Little Nightmares 3 in October 2025, while Sony Computer Entertainment Japan put ICO on PlayStation 2 back in 2001. Placing them side by side shows how far the idea of a sidekick has travelled, and what quietly went missing along the way.
ICO made your partner the problem
ICO gives you a horned boy and a girl who cannot look after herself. You take Yorda’s hand and pull her along at a faster pace. Alternatively, you tell her to follow you, or you tell her to wait somewhere.
Her limits are severe, and the game never softens them. She jumps only short distances, and she cannot climb over tall barriers. Meanwhile Ico handles all of that himself, since only he can.
So why drag her around at all? Because certain doors open for nobody else. You cannot progress until you move Yorda to those doors, which quietly makes her the lock and the key at once.
Then the pressure arrives. Shadow creatures try to drag her into black vortexes whenever Ico leaves her alone for any length of time. If she becomes fully engulfed, the game is over and you restart from a save point. Ico can beat the shadows back with a stick or a sword, and he can free her from a vortex if he reaches her quickly enough.
Notice what that design buys. Yorda never fights, climbs or solves anything. Instead she works as a timer, so the whole castle turns tense the moment you leave her on a ledge. In other words, the famous emotional weight of ICO grows directly out of her helplessness.
Little Nightmares 3 hands both children a tool
Supermassive Games took the opposite road. Little Nightmares 3 stars Low and Alone, and each child carries equipment the other lacks. Low wields a bow and arrows, which lets him strike from a distance and solve puzzles with precision. Alone carries a wrench instead, a versatile tool for smashing obstacles, turning mechanisms and forcing her way through barriers.
Bandai Namco calls the result a natural synergy, and adds that some challenges require combining their talents to succeed. In practice, a blocked route usually needs one child to shoot something while the other cranks something.
Online co-op is the headline change, and it arrives as a series first. Play by yourself, though, and the second character runs on AI. The publisher explains that this companion responds to your actions. It then helps with puzzles and challenges as you explore The Spiral, much as Six did in Little Nightmares II.
Because a real person might occupy either seat, neither child can be luggage. Nobody would agree to spend six hours playing the helpless one. Therefore the Little Nightmares 3 companion had to become genuinely capable, and the rest of the design followed that decision.
What the Little Nightmares 3 companion gains and loses
The gain is obvious, and it is real. Two capable characters make far better co-op, because both players get to act rather than babysit. Puzzles can also demand more, since each side brings a different verb to the problem.
Still, something genuine left with the burden. ICO generated dread for free by making Yorda fragile and slow. Every time you climbed ahead, the game punished you emotionally before it punished you mechanically. A partner who can fend for herself simply cannot do that.
So Little Nightmares 3 builds its fear somewhere else, mostly through The Spiral itself and the things living in it. That reads as a fair trade rather than a mistake. It does mean the two games chase different feelings, despite looking like cousins on a shelf.
Which one you prefer probably depends on what you want a partner to be. Some players want somebody to protect, while others want somebody to work alongside. If uneasy partnerships interest you, that same nerve runs through R.E.P.O. vs Left 4 Dead 2: Which Co-Op Horror Game Is Better in 2026?. Horror fans can also compare notes with Alien Isolation vs Cronos The New Dawn: Gameplay, Horror, and Verdict. Bandai Namco keeps the full details on its official co-op explainer.
Frequently asked questions
Can you play Little Nightmares 3 on your own? Yes. The second character switches to AI, and it responds to your actions while helping with puzzles.
What do Low and Alone actually carry? Low uses a bow and arrows for distance and precision, whereas Alone swings a wrench to smash obstacles and turn mechanisms.
Is the Little Nightmares 3 companion anything like Yorda? Not at all, because Yorda could not fight or climb, and losing her to the shadows ended your game.
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