The majority of the game takes place in abandoned areas (house, defunct mine, etc.), each with different objectives. Slender: The Arrival uses similar mechanics to its predecessor, The Eight Pages. The character is armed only with a flashlight. This limited defense forces a sense of helplessness, as the best way to survive in the game is to run whenever in danger. The Slender Man's behavior changes slightly between levels. In the first level, the Slender Man can be seen standing outside of the house through every window, once the player acquires the flashlight, and after going through the gate outside, he can be seen on the top of hills well away from the player. In level two, he most often teleports off-screen or just out of the character's line of sight but is capable of appearing directly in front of the player. It is observed that his motion centers around following the player but consists largely of jumping from place to place, the inconvenience of which is increased as each of the eight pages are collected.
His behavior is much the same as this in level four, except more active. In level three, he pursues much less aggressively, though is capable of teleporting directly in front of the player. In this level, the main antagonist is a girl who chases the player (most often following her path directly, but has been seen teleporting. It is unknown whether this is a glitch or an in-game mechanic). The only way of subduing her is by focusing the flashlight (on its second setting) on her. The girl will also lunge at the player if in a close distance. While looking at the Slender Man, the camera succumbs to electronic distortions such as static, blurring, color spots, audio distortion, etc., which obstructs the player's vision unless facing away, and far enough from it. The player cannot pause while this occurs, to prevent them taking a break due to being frightened. When caught, the game over screen is also different; while in Slender: The Eight Pages, the player saw a white static background with Slender Man's faceless head, the one for Slender: The Arrival is black, with an overhead-lit and color-distorted hue and less static.[2]
There are also new choices in difficulty (which must first be unlocked by completing the game once) being easy, normal, and hardcore. In hardcore, the flashlight can run out, enemies are more aggressive and the player's stamina runs out quickly. Easy has infinite flashlight, a great deal of stamina, and the enemies are not very aggressive.
Plot
Slender: The Arrival follows the story of Lauren, who comes to help her childhood friend Kate sell and move out of her childhood home in the fictional place of Oakside, bringing a video camera with her. The road to Kate's house is blocked by a fallen tree, forcing Lauren to leave her car behind and walk there. Along the way, she passes by another car (it is unknown who owns it). With the sun setting, Lauren discovers Kate's home, doors ajar, furniture and belongings disheveled. She also finds a flashlight. Lauren unlocks Kate's room and sees the walls filled with black scratchings of an ominous figure and messages. Lauren hears Kate's scream coming from outside and investigates the sound, heading into the wooded park behind the house. She also has to activate some generators to turn on the lights. Along the path, she finds a burnt farmhouse. Inside is Charlie Matheson Jr., a boy who had disappeared years ago and is now deformed. He disappears when Lauren approaches him.
Lauren searches the wooded area for clues as to the whereabouts of Kate but only finds more scribbled drawings (eight in total). As she ventures deeper into the park, she encounters a tall, faceless figure called the Slender Man, who can only be seen through her video camera. After all eight pages are collected, Lauren runs from the entity, slipping down an embankment, hitting her head and passing out.
She regains consciousness in the morning, and still searches for Kate, Lauren stumbles upon an old abandoned coal mine. To get out, she attempts to power the emergency lift by activating six generators (in the Hardcore difficulty, Lauren must find gas canisters in order to power the generators). Her progress is hindered by the attack of a masked, hooded figure known as the Chaser (later revealed to be a now-savage Kate), who seems to have photophobia, can be hindered by Lauren's flashlight. The Slender Man also attempts to attack Lauren in the mine.
Lauren powers and uses the lift to escape the mine. She continues up the mountainside towards a radio tower and along the way, she can find a teddy bear. Interacting with it starts an optional level where Charlie is playing on the beach with his parents at a picnic out of reach. After being led away by collecting a trail of toy trains that led him into the woods, he is caught by the Slender Man.
Lauren reaches a storage outpost with a television and two tapes. One shows Kate (who has a video camera of her own) hurriedly scribbling upon papers before discovering that the Slender Man is trying to get in. She starts to close every door and window in the house, but the entity manages to get inside. Kate then runs back to her room where the Slender Man suddenly appears and she proceeds to jump out of the bedroom window before the tape abruptly ends.
The other tape shows Carl-Ross (CR for short), a friend of Kate, investigating a farm where he collects evidence into the story of Charles Matheson. Like Lauren and Kate, he also has a video camera. He uses gas canisters to power a generator, and looks for a key to unlock a gate to the Matheson family chapel. While there, he discovers that the Matheson family were responsible for accidentally bringing the Slender Man to Oakside. Charlie, now a deformed and zombie-like follower of the Slender Man, pursues him and eventually chases him away.
Continuing onward to the radio tower, Lauren finds herself emerging from a mine into a forest fire, where the Slender Man aggressively pursues her. Lauren escapes from the entity after getting inside the radio tower building and looks for a key to unlock a door. Her flashlight's batteries die as she goes through the door, only to find she has reached a dead end, containing the burnt corpse of CR. She finds a camera with the recording of two panicked people, Kate and CR. Shortly after listening, the corridor goes dark, Charlie runs towards Lauren and she blacks out.
Lauren wakes up in the basement of the farmhouse from earlier with Charlie blocking the way out. After finding two documents, Charlie disappears. Lauren hears crying upstairs and finds Kate, but Kate turns into the Chaser and attacks her. Lauren's camera turns back on temporarily to show a now-seemly dead Lauren's legs being dragged away by Kate to an unknown location.
An additional level acts as a remake of The Eight Pages and reveals Kate as the protagonist of said game. After finding all the pages, the Slender Man catches her, claiming that he "has plans for her". A secret level is also unlockable, which takes place at Kate's house in the daytime. The player's character is unknown, but the goal of the level is basically a hide-and-seek from the Slender Man.
A new chapter introduced in the remaster has Lauren finding another storage outpost up the mountainside with a box of files. Interacting with the box starts a new level with Charles Matheson, Charlie's father, as the player's character. Sometime after his son's disappearance, Charles spots him in his proxified form before being surprised by the Slender Man. He wakes up in a derelict hospital and explores the place while facing many of the Slender Man's hallucinations. Charles exits the hospital and finds a crying Charlie, but when he approaches his son, Charlie transforms and attacks him. Seeing himself back in the hospital, Charles sees messages on the walls telling him that he can save Charlie by cleansing himself with fire and sets the hospital ablaze, possibly explaining the fire at the farmhouse. The last scene shows Charles laid down of the floor amid the flames, with a shadow in form of the Slender Man approaching him.
Characters
Lauren – The game's protagonist and playable character. She comes to her friend Kate's house to help her sell it, only to find her missing. Against all odds, she proceeds to relentlessly search for Kate and any clues that might explain how she went missing.
Kate/The Chaser – A close friend of Lauren, she is also playable in 'Escape' and 'Genesis'. Her mother has recently died and she has decided to sell the house, prompting Lauren's visit with the intention to assist, but disappears. Prior to the events of the game, she had visions of the 'Slender Man' which she shared with her friend CR. The night before the events of the game, she was attacked in her home but managed to escape, as revealed in 'Escape'. CR arranges for himself and her to be burned to death in order to stop the 'curse' of the Slender Man spreading, but Kate runs away and is implied to then be driven to the point of violent madness, later attacking Lauren in the mines and the Matheson house at the end. It's unknown where she got the hood and mask that she wore when she was turned into a proxy.
Carl-Ross "CR" – A friend of Kate, with whom he shared her visions of the Slender Man. He and Kate would play in the woods together as children, but when Kate's mom found out, he stopped visiting. Despite asking Kate to keep his existence a secret from Lauren, he advised Kate to call her when her mom died. He is playable in 'Homestead' in which he investigates a farmland property owned by the Mathesons and finds clues suggesting that Slender Man had stalked them for generations. CR is found at the end of the game, his charred corpse next to a camcorder. A scrapbook item located next to Kate's waste bin implies that his real name is Carl-Ross and that he may have (unreciprocated) romantic feelings for Kate.
Slender Man – The faceless main antagonist of the game who can only be seen through video cameras. Facing him causes the camera to glitch and distort, intensifying as the player gets closer. Coming too close will result in the player's death. In the game, it is also shown that his influence can eventually drive his victims so far into insanity that they become a monstrous, violent shadow of their former selves (called "Proxies"), as with Kate and Charlie.
Charlie Matheson Jr. – The missing child. Missing posters can be found right outside Kate's house on a tree and outside the entrance of the Kullman Mine. Version 1.5 of the game has Charlie appear in the prologue, 'Homestead' and epilogue as a decaying zombie-like corpse that chases Lauren, and it is implied that he was heavily affected by Slender Man's influence but is now helping Lauren to investigate him. In 'Memories', it was shown how he was lured into the woods by Slender Man before being captured. In 'Homestead', it's shown that the farmland property Charlie and his family would often visit shows signs of the Slender Man haunting the Mathesons for generations. CR theorises that Charlie inadvertently stumbled upon evidence of this, which may have prompted the Slender Man to come after him in particular.
On December 1, 2012, Blue Isle Studios announced its partnership with the Marble Hornets team, a YouTube channel known for its horror videos which heavily featured Slender Man, and helped to shape the modern version of the character. Joseph DeLage, Tim Sutton, and Troy Wagner helped write the script for the initial release of the game.[5]
On February 9, 2013, Slender: The Arrival was opened to the public for beta testing; those who pre-ordered the game were entitled to a free demo of the game. Pre-orders were $5 each, but once the game was released, it would be $10.[6]
On October 1, 2021, Blue Isle announced that the game would be released for Android and iOS on the 13th of the same month, with the first chapter being available for free.[7]
On July 27, 2023, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the game, Blue Isle announced a remastered version of the game made in Unreal Engine 5 which was released on October 18, of that year, including a redesign for the main antagonist, overhauled graphics, and a new story chapter.[8]DLSS is also included.[9]
In October 2023, Blue Isle Studios announced a Halloween-themed event for the game, where the player must collect 30 pumpkins to unlock a special costume for Slender Man. In addition, they announced a cross-platform mod kit allowing users to create their own mods and chapters, a multiplayer mode, and three downloadable content chapters.[10]
Slender: The Arrival received mixed to positive reviews, with critics praising its soundtrack, tense atmosphere and scares, but also criticizing its shorter-than-expected campaign length and repetitive gameplay. Aggregating review website Metacritic gave the Xbox 360 version 61/100 based on 5 reviews,[13] the Microsoft Windows version 65/100 based on 30 reviews,[11] the PlayStation 4 version 60/100 based on 8 reviews,[14] the Xbox One version 59/100 based on 6 reviews,[15] and the PlayStation 3 version 48/100 based on 4 reviews.[12]
In a positive review, The Escapist said, "you may have mixed feelings about its brevity and the repetitive mechanics, but it's certainly a well-built game that, above all, is scary to play" and gave the game a score of 4.5 stars out of 5.[24]VVGtv gave the game a score of 8.8/10, praising the game's graphics, sound, gameplay (with the exception of a few elements) and mystery element, while criticising the short story, adding that "if you played The Eight Pages and are looking for the next scare to really get your adrenaline pumping and to get you to yell like you did when you first saw Slenderman right behind you, this game will not disappoint".[25]GameSpot gave the game a score of 8.5/10, calling it "one of the most terrifying games in recent memory".[17]
In a negative review, VideoGamer.com said The Arrival is a "frustrating game, not just because it can be occasionally unfair but because these guys clearly have no idea how to promote fear. Running around playing kiss chase with a trans-dimensional being doesn't really cut it." and gave it a score of 4/10.[20]
Sequel
Alongside the announcement of the remaster, a sequel titled S: Lost Chapters was announced on July 27, 2023.[26] The game will utilize more mechanics as well as featuring more antagonists and locations, including ones from The Arrival.[27]
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