Slender: Anxiety

If there’s one thing people like to do is use someone else’s idea in order to express their own creativity, which is a bit of a paradox. However, it’s true that everyone is free to do what they want as long as they ask for permission, and sometimes great things come out of projects that are actually remakes of something else. Hence, the game at hand should find a decent audience for itself as well.

Slender: Anxiety is a remake of the old Slender: The Arrival, but it aims to improve on the original when it comes to story, graphics and the general atmosphere. Granted, the story and the gameplay are more or less the same as in every other Slender clone out there, but this one appears to be a tad more refined and enjoyable than the usual remakes.

As such, you have to explore a dark forest and find a few pages, each one of which puts you closer to the entity known as Slender. In case you are not aware of it, the goal is to avoid getting too close to the creature, because you die if you stay near him for too long, of if you stare at him. It’s a wonderful and very powerful idea, but it got old over the years and it may not have the same effect now.

One of the most disappointing things about the game is the fact that it takes place in a forest as well, which means that even the environments are similar to the original game. The mission is the same too, so there are very few original ideas at work here. Although remakes can be beneficial and enjoyable sometimes, this one does not really seem to make any efforts in this regard.

Speaking of environments, the graphics have been improved a little bit, although the engine is still Unity, albeit a much newer version. Thus, the textures are tad nicer, and the performance has been improved as well. On the other hand, there’s not much to see when it comes to the landscape, especially since most of the action takes place in the dark.

When it’s all said and done, there’s very little here to suggest that Slender: Anxiety is anything but a clone. However, the game is not complete yet, so it might get a lot better in the future, at least as long as the developers come with some ideas of their own.