Three years after Eric Knudsen’s fictional creature first appeared in the Something Awful forums, the Internet’s best dressed, svelte monster made its debut in the world of gaming in 2012’s Slender: The Eight Pages. The free, mini indie title quickly became an Internet sensation for its mysterious lack of explanation and focus on exploration. Slender: The Arrival, which first appeared on Steam in 2013, is less a sequel to Eight Pages, and more of an elaboration on the concept, featuring additional levels, more characters, and a fully realized plot.
The new storyline centers around the protagonist, Lauren, and her investigation into the disappearance of her friend, Kate. After the prologue, the game offers a brief reimagining of Eight Pages before moving on to several other equally eerie environments such as abandoned cellars, a shuddered mining facility, and a remote radio tower. The narrative unfolds through collectible letters and notes found scattered about the environments, many of which can be easily missed. The plot is obviously more realized than in Eight Pages, but it still remains ambiguous and unfortunately, not very interesting.
The entire game is beheld through the lens of a camcorder, which essentially acts as a device to warn you when Slender Man shows up. The abrupt digital distortion and camera flickering, made terrifying by films like The Ring, effectively create a sense of panic when they occur. Aside from the camera, your only wieldable item is a flashlight, which thankfully maintains a realistic battery life and doesn’t require constant searching for spares batteries. The flashlight can be toggled from a wide, shallow beam to a smaller, more concentrated beam, which is useful during the rare times you can use it to stun some of the enemies. As they won’t actually retreat, stunning enemies really only buys you enough time to start running away.
True to the original, The Arrival offers no offensive capabilities, which does create a sense of perpetual vulnerability. However, this limitation, in addition to the repetitive use of trite game devices such as fetching keys or flipping switches, quickly becomes tedious. I’m no S.T.A.R.S commando, but if I found myself in a survival horror situation, I’d fashion a weapon for myself out of whatever I could find. How effective a stick or a potted plant would be against supernatural stalkers in unclear, but when backed into a corner, you can bet I’d go down swinging. As proven by titles like Silent Hill, allowing players to at least try and defend themselves doesn’t necessarily negate an atmosphere of vulnerability.
While a lack of focus worked brilliantly in the brief, 30-minute Eight Pages, it doesn’t translate well to The Arrival. Featuring no waypoints or map, the game does attempt to guide you in some areas via subtle environmental clues, but on several occasions I apparently missed these clues and found myself completely lost with no sense of where to go. Getting lost may be terrifying in real life, but in a game, it’s just annoying.
Like many horror titles, the controls feel a tad sloppy, which is kind of unacceptable in a game where fleeing is your only means of survival. Panic quickly turns to frustration (and comedy for whoever may be watching) when you can’t escape a threat because you’re stuck in a doorway, fighting with the door.
The most impressive thing about The Arrival is the audio. The dynamic musical score and sound effects are super effective at building tension in a very primal way, subtly letting you know you’re not alone by way of nearby snapping twigs and floors creaking in the next room. In one of the scariest moments of the game, I was pursued through darkened corridors by an enemy whose menacing presence was felt mostly audibly. The quick slaps of its feet on the concrete floor as it sprinted about in search of me were adrenaline inducing when heard through headphones, which I highly recommend using for a richer experience.
Slender: The Arrival does have it’s fair share of good scares, and it admittedly made the hair on my neck stand up more than a few times (thanks mostly to the audio), but the cumbersome controls, dated visuals, lack of variety, and unengaging narrative left much to be desired. Furthermore, unless your a completionist or Slender Man fanatic, the collectibles and Hardcore mode probably won’t be enough bring you back after the 2-hour campaign. However, if you’d like a bite-size survival horror experience, or just want to see what the Slender Man phenomenon is all about, give it a whirl.
Slender: The Arrival is now available for download in the PlayStation Store for $10.00 with the Xbox One version to follow tomorrow.