Case Study: Little Nightmares Official Discord server

Building a home for those who wander The Maw

Things often go bump in the night, and this time it was the news that Bandai Namco were continuing the well-loved Little Nightmares franchise with a third instalment, helmed by the capable team at Supermassive Games.

A testament to the work provided by Project N for the official Elden Ring and Tekken Discord servers, Bandai Namco saw fit to recruit the team to do the same for this new server.

Planning and server set up was key for this work; being a well loved game, with heaps of lore and transmedia, meant a totally unique server structure was required to provide a suitable home for fans of the franchise.

We worked closely with the team at Bandai to ensure the server would have an excellent user experience for those that joined and that it also covered every aspect of the franchise; previous games, mobile games, comics, lore and even podcasts. Every instance of the franchise and its fanbase was catered for.

As part of this, the design team at Project N created a suite of unique, custom emojis and stickers for the server that leaned into the creepy weirdness of the franchise. These emojis were also designed to be considered as stand-alone reaction emotes to use in other servers - a benefit to Discord Nitro subscribers and a clever way for the Little Nightmares server to be marketed elsewhere on the platform.

A community is what makes a Discord server, and Bandai Namco had seen fit to engage directly with the biggest fan-made Discord server, asking the moderation team there to be involved in the set-up of the official server. Project N accommodated these fans with recognition as unique roles, as well as helping to onboard them as moderators for the new server. The team at Project N developed the fan team’s existing moderation skills with best practices for moderation in a larger server, supporting them with the writing of a Little Nightmares Community Moderator Handbook and providing existing Project N moderators from other servers for the new team to lean on.

The Little Nightmares server grew at a phenomenal rate, attaining around 10,000 users after a month, primarily from the strength of the brand and the exciting Little Nightmares live stream that Bandai Namco ran soon after the server launch. The fan-made server closed its doors and migrated most of its moderators and users to the official server at their own volition, which solidified the effort of Bandai Namco to engage with them and Project N to welcome them as existing community moderators.

Project N helped organise and run a creative competition within the server that had a significant number of submissions from fans, with the prize being bragging rights with a unique role and the winning design being made into custom emojis for use on the server.

Recently, Project N developed and coded a simple text-based minigame for the server where users are able to attempt ‘escapes’ from the in-game world of The Maw after ‘exploring’ and finding items to help them. This simple addition to the server provides some quick fun for the community and is consistently one of the most used channels every month.

The community is passionate, welcoming and continues to grow, peaking at just over 25,000 members not long after Little Nightmares 3 released. The retention rate in the server for these new members is, on average 42%, which is well over the Discord industry benchmark retention rate average of 20%, which means these users are finding immediate and lasting value in what is going on in the server, proving the value the Project N and BN community teams are adding!

If you're seeking support with community management, then get in touch with Project N today to find out how we can help build or manage a community for your game or product.

You can check out the Little Nightmares Official Discord server here.

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From Elden Ring to TEKKEN and now Little Nightmares, working with Project N has been consistently smooth and collaborative. Their hands-on approach and passionate team continue to elevate each server we launch. The latest one is off to a great start - their dedication really shows!