It seems that Slender: The Arrival, one of the scariest games in recent history, will be getting Oculus Rift support. Tweets from the game’s developer indicate that there is a build of the game with Oculus Rift support being shown at this weekend’s PAX 2013 event.
Slender: The Arrival (2013) is the pseudo-sequel to an experimental game called Slender: The Eight Pages. The latter was created by one developer and released initially in 2012 with small incremental updates released over time. Eventually the creator partnered with Blue Isle Studios to take the terrifying concept game to full fledged production.
According to tweets from Blue Isle Studios, it would appear as though the developers are showing off a version of Slender: The Arrival with Oculus Rift support at this weekend’s PAX 2013 event held in Seattle:
Come party with us tonight @ Rock Bottom Brewery and try out Slender: The Arrival with the Oculus Rift! 1333 5th Ave, 7-11 pm.
— Blue Isle Studios (@BlueIsleStudio) September 1, 2013
The developer also retweeted a reaction from someone who played the game with Oculus Rift support:
Playing Slender: The Arrival with the Oculus Rift is ridiculously immersive and terrifying.
— Jake Magee (@JakeMMagee) August 31, 2013
While Slender: The Arrival is built in Unity, and should thus be able to take advantage of the official Oculus Rift Unity integration, it’s possible that the developers are showing the game with a third-party program which adapts the game for the Rift (almost never as good as a proper native implementation), the likes of which have been seen on YouTube before.
We’ve reached out to Blue Isle Studios to confirm whether or not we’ll see official Oculus Rift support for Slender: The Arrival.
Slender: The Arrival builds on the frightening game mechanic introduced in Slender: The Eight Pages — namely, a terrifying creature that’s stalking you through the woods and wants to steal your soul. The only way to prevent this is to not look at… it. The interesting mechanic means that in an ideal situation, it might be right behind you, but you can’t turn around to know for sure. The resulting tension is too much for some people to handle. In the Oculus Rift I imagine it could be downright traumatizing.
We’ll let you know when we get official word from Blue Isle Studios. Fingers crossed!
