The Ending of Little Nightmares 2 Explained

Here is just about the most obvious spoiler warning ever.

Following five chapters of shocking sights and acts, Little Nightmares 2 concludes on one of the most suitably shocking endings we’ve ever seen.

After a mad dash out of the Signal Tower and away from a malevolent mass of eyes, Six betrays Mono, letting go of his hand so he plummets all the way back down the Signal Tower (or Black Tower) and into the abyss, surrounded by monstrous eyes. As time ticks away, Mono ages, eventually revealing that he is The Thin Man, the main antagonist of the game and the supposed big bad of the series.

But what’s the explanation for this ending, what does it all mean? While Tarsier have never been a studio to spell things out in black and white, there are quite a few theories that you can take away from this huge twist.

 

Little Nightmares 2 Ending Explained

The first explanation is that Pale City, the Maw, everything is stuck in a time loop, hence how Mono eventually becomes The Thin Man.

This is backed up by the constant ticking noise as Mono travels down the hallway towards his door, as well as the fact that we appear to have seen the origins of The Thin Man. It could be the case that you are a Thin Man, someone at the behest of the eyes seen in the Signal Tower (who seem to be the de facto baddies after all and could be the reason behind the time loop), but The Thin Man’s apparent obsession with Mono and Six over the course of Chapter 4 would make more sense with him being Mono all along, a bitter grown man with exceptional powers who’s trying to break the loop.

There’s also his name: Mono, meaning one, as in the start of it all. Perhaps Mono represents the start of the loop while Six is its end, with more characters due to be revealed in the middle. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see characters called Two, Three, Four, and Five at some point in the future. Just like the first Little Nightmares, we will likely be getting DLC along the road for Little Nightmares 2, so that might be a good hint as to what the ending and storyline actually means. The time loop does seem unquestionable though, otherwise it’s a little impossible to explain the point of Mono being shown as The Thin Man.

As a neat, almost surely coincidental connection due to the timings of the show and the game, the two main characters in the TV show Dark, which deals heavily in time loops, also wear a yellow raincoat. As Little Nightmares came out in the same year as the first season of the show, there’s very little chance at all of Tarsier being influenced by Dark and vice versa, but it’s an interesting little similarity to note. It could be that Tarsier were influenced by Dark’s later seasons for their sequel, but again: probably just a coincidence.

 

Why Did Six Betray Mono?

Why would Six betray Mono, though? Well, it could be that she has already lived in this loop and knows that Mono must become the Thin Man, or that she’s trying to kill him to stop that from happening, or that Six is, in fact, a villain.

Over the course of Little Nightmares 2, Six behaves bizarrely and rather violently, cruelly smashing a Bully and warming her hands as the Doctor roasts in the incinerator, as well as maliciously cracking the fingers on a mannequin. With Mono’s usefulness fulfilled, Six could just be looking to get rid of him.

 

Is Little Nightmares 2 A Prequel?

However, there’s also a post-credits scene in Little Nightmares 2 that points at something else on top of this time loop revelation: the whole game is a prequel to the first game.

Obtained by collecting all of the Glitching Remains and replaying the final chapter, this post-credits scene shows Six having escaped the Signal Tower, teleporting through a television. There, her shadow form seems to beckon her to a poster of the Maw, the location of the original game, after which her stomach rumbles in hunger. Her constant appetite could be a side-effect of her shadow being ripped from her, like she has a hole that she constantly needs to fill.

This also does seem to explain why she has none of her powers at any point in Little Nightmares 2, as well as why she doesn’t start with her iconic yellow raincoat on, which she seems to have obtained at the end of Very Little Nightmares from The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat. It’s possible that Six landed ashore after that game and was captured by the Hunter, leading to her losing the raincoat and then finding it later. The comics also refer to Six living in an unnamed city (which could potentially mean Pale City, the main setting of the second game) before she was captured by the Ferryman, who took her to the Maw. Is it possible that Six was intentionally captured so she could easily get aboard the Maw?

If I had to say one definitive explanation about the plot and ending of Little Nightmares 2, it’s this: we’re stuck in a time loop and it’s in fact a prequel to the first game. The whole plot is cyclical with plot points from the comics, DLC, and spin-offs coming to the fore — you can’t just play the two main games to understand what’s going on. In fact, the ending of the Secrets of the Maw DLC shows The Thin Man in a TV aboard the ship, which, when taking everything into account, suggests that Little Nightmares 3 may follow Mono as The Thin Man hunting down Six for revenge and to break the loop and stop everything from starting again, filling in the gaps along the way.

There’s a lot more lore to come in the world of Little Nightmares; diving into it may even leave you more confused than when you began. No matter what, though, remember one thing: nothing is as it seems.

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