That’s it – no shoot, strafe, grenades or slow motion focus. You can sprint, but not for long as your stamina depletes quickly. You are armed just with a video camera that provides your light in the darkness or a torch in later levels. You are Lauren, investigating the disappearance of your friend Kate in a rural setting. A few more levels have been added but it’s basically the same game. A sequel was soon made and this is what we have here on Xbox One. The game gathered critical acclaim for its scares and mythical status. So in 2010 Blue Isles Studio released Slender on the PC as an indie game. It even spawned two horrific attempted murders involving young girls stabbing one another because the Slender man told them to do so. No one could tell what the truth was any more and people would write about the Slenderman like he’s been in our shared conscious since the start of all bogeyman stories. A complex narrative and history of the Slender Man was made up quickly and then, like good urban myths, extra bits of the fictional myth went viral. The Slender Man was first put into existence in 2009 by Something Awful forums who inserted this besuited, slender, faceless figure into a selection of old photo’s from the 1930’s. You see I didn’t switch the game off because I was bored, it’s because well, you can only take a little bit of Slender at a time, like a rollercoaster or daytime television, before you have to check into a sanatorium. Twenty minutes later I switch the game off and then lock the back door, check behind the curtains, look under bed and try to get to sleep without thinking about him and that blank soulless face. The world flips over and over and then he appears behind me, I can’t go any further, I am trapped as his arms become tentacles and the screen goes black. I’m hearing whispering to my left, the screen distorts and a low level disturbing drone gets louder and more disturbing. I’m now running through the woods, with just a flashlight and a video camera. Five minutes more and I am now frowning heavily, while feeling very scared, looking behind me, glancing out of the window nervously and jumping suddenly, even through I know it’s just a game. Ten minutes later and I find myself slightly sweaty with goose bumps appearing all over my legs and arms. It’s just past midnight and I am settling down to play Slender The Arrival.

Slenderman the arrival xbox