It may not be a AAA release, exactly, but Tarsier Studios' sequel is generally regarded as both more ambitious and more accomplished than its predecessor, and is a rare critical darling in its publisher's recent portfolio.
With a Metacritic average of 84 on PC, a new Bandai Namco game hasn't received such praise from the critics since Dragon Ball FighterZ when it launched on Xbox One more than three years ago. In its way, then, Little Nightmares 2 is something of a statement release for the publisher. Twelve months, four games, and not a great deal to shout about. Indeed, Bandai Namco's recent run of games principally targeted outside of Asia is plainly disappointing: Dontnod's Twin Mirror (60 on PlayStation 4), Supermassive's Dark Pictures: The Little Hope (71), and Slightly Mad's Project Cars 3 (70), and Fast & Furious Crossroads (35). If you narrow that to its more Western-facing games, the track record is patchier still, with its biggest critical success of the last three years being Digixart's 11-11: Memories Retold, which got a Metacritic average of 77 in November 2018.īoth are fine games, of course, but it's fair to say that international publishers with multi-billion dollar revenues aspire to rather more for their high-water marks over such a long period. If you exclude re-releases and remasters of older titles, the last Bandai Namco product to reach a Metacritic average of 80 was Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown in January 2019.
Among the industry's major publishers, Bandai Namco may be the most inconsistent in terms of the critical reception of its games - if not across its entire history, then certainly in the last few years.
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