Reanimal review – the dollhouse horror of Little Nightmares gives way to a grimier tale of war and slaughter

Hey, Tarsier, leave them kids alone

Image credit:THQ Nordic / Rock Paper Shotgun

• Developer: Tarsier
• Publisher: THQ Nordic
• Release: February 13th, 2025
• On: Windows
• From: Steam , GOG , Epic Games Store
• Price: £35/$40/€40
• Reviewed on: Intel Core-i7 12700F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060, Windows 11

In an industry pestered by calls to “think of the children”, Tarsier’s games are useful reminders that children can be utterly depraved in ways no coddling adult would ever dream. Later in Reanimal , the developer’s latest, strictly ‘co-optional’ horror game, two kids rip an eyeball out of a massive, sunken horse skull and shove it into what I sincerely hope is the eyesocket of a slumbering whale. Somehow, this is necessary to advance.

It’s the kind of thing that would only occur to children, because children do not reason like ‘we’ do, those disgusting creeps. They sense that they exist in a world that isn’t for them: a world of baffling laws, high shelves, and everyday monstrosity; a world they’re required to ‘grow into’ by means of repeated shedding and sprouting and subjection - milk teeth and pubic hair and doing your goddamn chores. So they instinctively come up with ways to screw with the system, twist its horrible logic against itself. Why not push a horse’s eyeball into a whale?

Image credit:THQ Nordic / Rock Paper Shotgun

While we’re at it, why not use a plunger to extract a discarded human skinsuit from a toilet, revealing a key that has no earthly grounds for being there? Why not wear the head of a pig you found in a closet? It’s no madder than anything else in this universe. I relish Tarsier’s tales of little nightmares surviving and vandalising the larger nightmare of existence. I’d love to see this developer’s take on Peter Pan. That said, I don’t think Reanimal is their greatest escapade. It’s a tentative departure from the dollhouse puzzling of Little Nightmares that never quite finds its own centre of gravity.

Reanimal is the story of an orphan boy and girl - the latter controlled by the computer in single player – who are searching for their friends in a cyclopean charnel daydream of bogeymen and minefields and rancid, anguished animals. Each chapter sees you rescuing one friend from some enormous, forbidding structure, rearing up at you on approach care of an elegantly scripted, semi-manual camera.

You’ll travel much of the intervening waste by motorboat, the boy steering while the girl aims her lantern from the bow. The boat gets pretty crowded, but your NPC passengers typically stay behind while you explore on foot. In general, the partner AI is solid, seldom forgetting to help out when, say, you need two pairs of hands to open a door or turn a wheel. The camera keeps track of both playable characters effectively enough that I can imagine this being a decent co-op play, though I wasn’t able to sample co-op before writing this review.

Image credit:THQ Nordic / Rock Paper Shotgun

Reanimal’s world is older, shabbier, and less hopeful than that of Little Nightmares. There are fewer gleeful callbacks to the tumbling toybox of Tarsier’s old gig LittleBigPlanet. The proportions and atmosphere are closer to Playdead’s Inside , all cracked fog and vaporous stone. The architecture is more naturalistic, less of a witch’s cottage, more appropriate to your size. But you are still a child, which puts certain objects and surfaces beyond reach, while conferring a degree of passive protection against larger creatures who can’t chase you into the crevices. This is still a world in which you hide without intending to, and such ‘adults’ as you encounter react to you with hysterical outrage. You are a spider peeking out from between their toes. You are a moving dust mote in a setting that inclines toward paralysis.

The kids themselves are leaner and harder, more direct and less poetic of method, happy to wrap a marauding seagull around a crowbar, shiv a calcified mutant child, or smash the fingers of a ghoul. There’s a dedicated attack button, and later on, various ‘special weapons’. You will throw spears from the motorboat, rotate and fire a ponderous coastal turret, shoot a bazooka, hurl a grenade, and even drive a tank.

This isn’t any kind of combat system , mind. The flashes of Resident Evil are infrequent, with the game mostly driven by stealth, platforming, and gentle lock-and-key puzzles. With the exception of the tank - a cathartic endgame rush - the weapons feel like disposable puzzle props. There ain’t any ‘gunfeel’ to write home about, either. The turret has to be electrified and activated, after gaining access to another structure. It takes two of you to heft that bazooka, and you only get one shot.

Image credit:THQ Nordic / Rock Paper Shotgun

I do think Tarsier have lost their way by flirting with combat, mostly because it accompanies some repetition. Harpooning explosive mutants from your boat is irritating busywork, a process of nosing forward and waiting for the lock-on icon to appear. But the presence of firearms is justified inasmuch as Reanimal is more wartime phantasm than grim fairytale.

The war element sneaks up on you, admittedly. Across the first two thirds of its seven hour runtime, the game digs into a familiar vein of industrial decrepitude, cowled in negative space that is fitfully pierced by searchlights, winking red buoys, and those ever-so-delicate patches of brighter ground that indicate a path through wreckage. There is a mill made up of pipes and locker rooms housing computer monitors that drizzle lines of red and white code. There are carparks doused in volcanic ash. There is an orphanage of clapboard and chains and underground streets, entered by clambering through the face of a clock.

The settings are dingy projections, channelling primal fears and slowly revealing something about your fey handful of orphans. The same is true of the creatures. The first major antagonist is a lanky, lumpen abductor who spends half his time peering under tables, the other half engrossed in putrid domestic routines, gathering and ironing suits of human skin. You look at him and you fear becoming him. It’s best to keep an eye on the skinsuits, as well: some flop down from branches to chase you through the long grass.

Image credit:THQ Nordic / Rock Paper Shotgun

Later, you face a many-elbowed abomination with a pitch-black maw that recalls the watering well shown during the game’s opening. These visual reciprocities are load-bearing pillars. While there’s the suggestion of a world map here, with a critical path that loops between locations, Reanimal isn’t a consistent work of geography but a spiral of symbols. In particular, animal symbols. The game explores the figure of the animal as both a thing to slaughter and a thing to sacrifice, with the predictable implication that you are next on the chopping block – an anxiety you can poke at, by having your kids wear pig head hats.

The visual composition is exquisite throughout, each piece of architecture carefully framed to foreground exits and puzzle pieces, without recourse to overt yellow-paint condescension or some kind of magic highlighting vision. That said, I do feel that Tarsier’s designers need to break out of their groove. Reanimal’s landscape fits together with a smoothness that feels too practised, bordering on enervating. The segmentation of scenes and the foreshadowing can be rather by-the-numbers. For example, a monster happening to leave the room just as you enter, not quite seeing you, a few scenes before the moment when you finally have to confront or escape it.

And then the shells start to fall. Over the last third, Reanimal sheds its Silent Hillian pallor and veers a bit randomly into World War parody, with areas made up of trenches, stripped trees, and Futurist gutted cityscapes. In some ways these closing chapters are the heart of the game. Reanimal’s zoological body horror appears to take heavy inspiration from the agony of animals during the World Wars – beasts of burden splintered and thrashing in the mud, lashed to artillery cannons or caught on the wire, entangled and transformed into vengeful, howling machines.

Image credit:THQ Nordic / Rock Paper Shotgun

Assuming I’m diagnosing the inspirations correctly, I think the animal metaphors here work well. That sheep from the trailer is a hell of a thing. I’m less sold on the invocation of the World Wars in general. The game doesn’t do anything very imaginative or probing with that colossal archive of pain and atrocity; it kind of just throws more bodies on the pile. It also leads to a closing act that, at worst, feels like a mopey Medal of Honor, in which you dart between shadows to avoid snipers, and navigate bunkers while being hounded by crawling grenadiers.

The Little Nightmares series continues in the hands of Supermassive. Nic (RPS in peace) called their Little Nightmares 3 “a heartbreakingly competent cover act of the series previous entries” with “a few truly brilliant moments, but a comparative dearth of imagination.” Not having played LP3, I get the sense that Reanimal is the more impressive game, inasmuch as it’s clearly trying to shatter the mold, but for every ghastly surprise there’s a moment of either aimlessness or overfamiliarity. It’s a game tottering through the mist of No Man’s Land with an armload of flapping skins and a porcine helmet, not quite sure of its destination.

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Reanimal

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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