If you have spent any amount of time in the horror obsessed corners of the interwebs, you have come across Slenderman in the last few years. Created by Victor Surge as a photoshop discussion on the Something Awful forums, the monster man has taken on a life of his own with tons of fan fiction, photos, even a movie (though I wouldn’t get your hopes up on that front). Chances are if you’re here, you know all about the origins and mythology of Slenderman, so I won’t bore you with back story.
But about two years ago, Slender: The Eight Pages was released as a free to download indie game where you ran from the now iconic entity. It was a truly terrifying little game that exploded all over the gaming community. After two years of refinement and some funding, we now get a fully realized commercial game: Slender: The Arrival. So how does it stack up as a full retail game? Is it still terrifying? And maybe most importantly, is it worth my time and money?
Gameplay
All the action is a first person perspective of your character behind a video camera. Slenderman of course causes many digital glitches when close and this serves to alert you that he is near. You really only have a few commands at your disposal. You can run, which you’ll need to do often, zoom your lens, which you never really need to do, and sneak. Early on you’ll get a flashlight which will become a god send as this game is dark as Hell. Seriously, the small illuminated circle may be all you can see at times.
With the exception of focusing your flashlight beam to deter a certain enemy, you have no offensive capabilities. You will be running away nearly the entire time. And I generally liked that aspect! So many horror games have gone the way of combat/action heavy, a la Dead Space, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil, you never truly feel weak or powerless. You know nothing you do can harm or slow down Slenderman. Just as it should be.
Just like the Eight Pages indie game, there are two points where you will have to collect or activate a certain number of items. Using these items then increases the aggressiveness of your pursuers, pushing you to become more and more frantic in your search. It’s simple, but very effective. Tension builds in a very organic way, and you feel as if each turn or glance may result in your death.
In between these pursuit sections can be a little dull though. You navigate through forests, mines, and buildings with no threat and are basically just moving to the next area of action. It’s a sort of roller coaster of white knuckle terror to boredom. The environments don’t do much to really draw you into the plot either with bland copy and paste trees and textures.
Presentation
For an indie game, the visuals are average. Lighting effects are solid as your flashlight dances between trees and corridors. Unfortunately the textures are minimal, so everything starts to appear far too similar. And like I said, sometimes the game gets way dark. Like too dark actually. My screen would flicker indicating Slendy was right in front of me, but I couldn’t even see a foot in front of me.
Sound is actually very well done here. Footsteps crunch under leaves, stone, and dirt with satisfying crunch. Ambient noises like wind and birds do a serviceable job of drawing you in to the setting. Also, the audio and visual glitches that occur around Slenderman act as a great device to both inform and engross the play. Overall I really enjoyed the audio design.
Value
This is going to be where Slenderman: The Arrival takes the biggest hits. The game is short. FRUSTRATINGLY short! There is an achievement for beating the game in under 45 minutes, and even as I was searching each little corner, I came damn close to the goal. There’s just this odd, abrupt end that really doesn’t do much to satisfy you. And there’s very little replayability. The scares are amazing…the first time around. You’ll learn the jump scare ques and suddenly you don’t feel all the threatened the second time around.
At $9.99 USD on Steam and console marketplaces, it’s hard to recommend a game that lasts about an hour. That’s on the steeper side of indie games for not much playtime.
Final Verdict
Slender: The Arrival delivers the scares in my opinion. It sets the right tone and when it hits, it hits hard. If you’re a fan of games like Outlast, or Amnesia the Dark Descent, you’ll probably enjoy this. The issue is the extremely short length for the price. You probably won’t go back for a second playthrough either.
If you’re a hardcore fan of Slenderman this will be for you. If you just want a good horror game to fill your time, maybe wait till the price drops a bit.
Slender: The Arrival is a solid game, with a few flaws and a disappointing length.
CLOCKWORK OMISSIONS 