Slender: The Arrival (may also be written as Slender – The Arrival) is a first-person survival horror video game developed by Blue Isle Studios as a fully realized, commercial version to Parsec Productions' Slender: The Eight Pages, with Chapter 6 being a remake of the aforementioned game. It was released on Microsoft Windows and OS X on March 26, 2013. Thereafter, the game was released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on September 23 and 24, 2014 respectively. It was released for PlayStation 4 on March 24, 2015 in North America and March 25 in Europe and Xbox One on March 25 worldwide, before shipping onto Wii U in October. A Nintendo Switch port for the game was announced on May 29, 2019 and was released on June 20, 2019. Like its predecessor, the game is based on the Something Awful forums' creation, the Slender Man.
Gameplay
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 outside the window, 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. 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. There are also new choices in difficulty (which must first be unlocked by completing the game once) being easy, normal, and hardcore. The differences being that hardcore allows the flashlight to 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 two childhood friends, Lauren and Kate, after the events in Slender: The Eight Pages. Kate (believed to be the young girl in the Eight Pages) is selling her childhood home outside of Oakside Park.
Lauren, in response to several unsettling letters Kate had sent her, comes to visit her childhood friend, bringing along a video camera. Her driveway blocked by a fallen tree, Lauren leaves her car by the road and continues on foot to the familiar house. Along the way, she passes another car (who owns the car is unknown). With the sun setting behind her, Lauren discovers Kate's home, doors ajar; furniture and belongings disheveled. After carefully searching the house for the key to Kate's room as well as finding a flashlight, Lauren lets herself in. Scrawlings of an ominous figure and haunting messages adorn her walls. A woman's scream coming from a shattered window causes her to panic. Desperately searching for her friend, Lauren heads towards the sound, into the wooded park behind the house. She activates three generators to light up the path and 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 aimlessly searches the wooded area for any clues as to the whereabouts of her friend, only finding more of the scribbled drawings. As she ventures deeper into the park searching for the eight drawings, scopaesthesia causes her to encounter a tall, faceless figure named Slender Man. After all pages are collected, Lauren runs from Slender Man, slipping down an embankment, hitting her head and causing her to pass out.
She regains consciousness several hours later (which is now morning), disoriented; still searching for Kate, Lauren stumbles upon an old abandoned coal mine. Various scraps of old paperwork reveal the mine to have been abandoned in a hurry, crediting seemingly random and unexplained attacks upon the crew to the closure of the mine. An escape route was outlined, but due to inactivity, remains inoperable. With nowhere to go, Lauren attempts to reactivate the emergency lift by activating the six generators that power it. Her progress is hindered by the attack of a young figure known as the Chaser, who seems to be afraid of the light of Lauren's flashlight, dressed in a blood covered white hooded sweatshirt and white mask. The Chaser's long black hair being the only discernible feature left uncloaked. Slender Man later attempts to attack Lauren in the mine.
Lauren does manage to escape both the Chaser and Slender Man and use the lift to get out of the mine. She continues moving forward, reaching a small storage outpost for the now abandoned mining facility. Within she discovers a small television playing a video along with two other tapes. Intrigue getting the better of her, Lauren watches the tape. On screen, she finds herself watching Kate hurriedly scribbling upon papers. Kate stops, grabs her camera and after discovering that Slender Man is trying to get in, starts to close every door and window in the house but Slender Man manages to get inside. Kate then runs back to her room where Slender Man suddenly appears inside. Kate appears to jump out of the bedroom window before the tape abruptly ends. The second tape shows Carl Ross (CR for short), a friend of Kate's, investigating a farm where he repairs a pulley system, find gas canisters to power a generator, and looks for a key needed to unlock a gate to a chapel. Charlie pursues him at every turn and eventually chases him away. The third tape shows Charlie playing on the beach and after collecting a trail of toy trains that lead him into the woods, he is caught by Slender Man.
