Ben Gowans - Lead Programmer

Little Nightmares III
Steam, Steamdeck, PS5, XBOX Series X|S, XBOX on PC, XBOX Handheld
Platforms:
Roles:
Lead Engineer
Release Year:
2025
For Little Nightmares III I was on this project from the very start to the very end.
We took over the franchise for Bandai Namco with the technical directive that we had to make the game Multiplayer.
We started with assessing the Engine from Little Nightmares II (LN2) and decided to start our engine from vanilla Unreal Engine. The main decision was because LN2 was hardcoded to be a player and an AI Companion. Multiplayer meant that we were changing so many systems that it made sense to start a new but we had a lot of designed mechanics from LN2 that we could remake the systems with Multiplayer in mind.
With us liking some of the technology like LN2's Streaming system as a system; so we recreated the technology quickly because it being already designed but added an improvement by adding a visual visualization so the implementation for others was easier. There were some systems like the camera system that worked well and easy to use so we took that wholesale.
With me becoming the Engineering Lead on this project I was being responsible for the team and technology direction progressing correctly and ultimately work for shipping the game. This is included me mentoring my Engineers and designers where Logical Setup was needed.
Our technical Director was spread across multiplayer projects so I happy stepped up handle some of the responsibilities to keep the project running smoothly. This includes communication with the publisher, make decisions on hardware specification.
One of my proudest achievements in this project is the level of accessibility we achieved. This was one of my initiative that i pushed forward from the start of the project. By the end of the project many of the team would consider designs and implementations across the game.
- Project from very beginning to the very end
- UI/UX
- Outfit System
- Save System
- Weapon & Tool System
- Playpal System (AI Companion)
- Multiplayer Implementation
- Automated Playthroughs
- Localization Pipeline
- Build Pipelines
- Platform Features & Compliance
- Mentoring Engineers & Logical Designers
- Promoting communication between Departments
- Handles Convention Demo Creation