WHO'S THAT IN THE BACKGROUND?!Slender: The Arrival
Slender man is back and he’s brought some friends with him out to play on next-gen platforms. This time around you play as Lauren, a real estate agent trying to help her friend sell a house. One her way to the property Lauren's car gets blocked by some damage from a storm the previous night. Lauren turns on her camera to record everything and eventually finds her way to her friend’s home, but soon realizes something terrible has happened.
“The further [Lauren] digs down the rabbit hole, the more she finds herself in danger,” said Brenden Frank, technical director for Slender: The Arrival of Blue Isle Studios, in an interview with iDigitalTimes.
If you played its predecessor, Slender: Eight Pages, you know the game mechanics were insanely simple: get the eight pages before Slender kills you. Frank said the second installment is more complex, full of twists and turns that’ll have your skin crawling. For example, at one point in the game, the player gets stalked by two AIs at the same time.
Screenshot of Slender: The Arrival.Slender: The Arrival
Frank, along with Slender: Eight Pages creator Mark Hadley and the rest of their four-person development team, took Eight Pages to the next level by stepping up their immersive gameplay style. The team wanted to stay true to the simplicity of Eight Pages, while adding in new elements to challenge the player.
“The complex layers that we added are optional,” Frank said. “There’s tons of things that you can collect and explore in this game, but they’re not necessary to the gameplay experience. If you just want to collect pages or accomplish other gameplay goals…we have that for you.”
The Slender community grew as players took to YouTube to share videos of themselves getting freaked out by the creepy man. Others shared their frustrations of playing the game for hours and still being unsuccessful at getting all eight pages.
YouTube personalities such as PewDiePie, Gigi Gorgeous, the guys at Smosh Games, TheFineBros and BCC Trolling have shared their reactions to the game, to the delight of Frank and the Blue Isle Studios team. He hopes the uploading videos trend that followed Eight Pages continues with The Arrival.
Screenshot of Slender: The Arrival.Slender: The Arrival
“We saw in the eight pages people loved to play it and show their reactions. People like PewDiePie who has millions and millions of followers who love to watch those kinds of things. It’s really exciting for us to design levels for these people to go and play and have millions of people enjoying that sort of thing. It gives us a ton of gratification,” Frank said. “If these streamers can go on and experience something unique and everyone else gets to experience that with this streamer, then we feel like we’ve succeeded in our goal. At the end of the day, we want people to play our game and have unique experiences.”
While it eventually grew to a six-person team, its “shoe string budget” and pressure of hitting the deadline to release on major gaming platforms soon caught up.
“We could’ve worked on this game for much longer than we ended up working on it,” Frank said. “Eventually we hit a point where we’re like, ‘Our fans want to see this game. We promised them [it would happen] within a short period of time. We need to suck it up and get it out.’
Screenshot of Slender: The Arrival.Slender: The Arrival
“Essentially, I’m thankful because I spent a good amount of time prior to working on [Slender] with BioWare and I learned a lot about how much games need to make sacrifices in terms not necessarily being 100 percent happy with everything you put out," Frank said. "That’s not to say we’re not proud of the product we put out. We’re very happy with the product. Whenever you’re putting a complex product out like Slender: The Arrival you have to be willing to deal with things not being perfect.”
The Arrival will take you roughly two hours for an average playthrough, according to the official site. The Eight Pages game has also been remastered as a bonus level for players who want to experience the original scares all over again. Slender: The Arrival is available on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Steam March 25.
