10 Horror Video Games That Brutally Punish You

7. Slender: The Arrival

House Of Velez
Blue Isle Studios

When Blue Island Studios spun their free viral Slender: The Eight Pages into Slender: The Arrival in 2013, many were eager to have the video game scares put up them by the Slender Man in all his ghoulish glory.

The game itself was somewhat of a mixed bag, with its approach and reliance on creepy atmospherics relatively fresh in '13, yet painfully dated when revisited today. Still, one thing that Slender: The Arrival most certainly did in spades, is punish players brutally for trying to take the easy way out.

In Slender: The Arrival, your player Lauren is destined to die regardless of how successful she is in her mission to find her missing pal Kate. If you don't find Kate, you die. If you do find Kate, yeah, you end up joining her in the afterlife, too.

Where this release gets particularly brutal (or extremely smart) is in how it deals with would-be cheaters. Some d*ckheads were able to glitch out of the borders of the game's map in order to avoid ol' Slendy and his chums - and for those who attempted to cheat The Arrival, they'd fall to their death and be greeted by a mocking message from the Slender Man himself.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.