The Letter is Like Slender Without Slenderman

In July 2014, a Wii U game called The Letter appeared in the Nintendo eShop. This horror game received terrible reviews, but also gathered a few fans who defend it as a worthy atmospheric experience.

Since The Letter was pretty cheap and I’ve enjoyed “bad” survival horror games in the past, I was willing to take a chance on it. I set it aside for a while, in part because my Wii U wasn’t hooked up to my TV.

Last week, when I learned an update gave it off-TV support, I finally played it.

Well, I started it. I have to admit, I didn’t finish it, even though it’s only a couple of hours long. Maybe it gets better later on, but I didn’t have the patience to find out.

People have described The Letter in various ways, often calling it a “walking simulator” like Dear Esther, although it does have some gameplay. Here’s how I’d describe it:

You might be familiar with the free survival horror game Slender. It has a simple premise. You must walk through the spooky forest and find the scattered pages, while avoiding death at the hands of Slenderman.

Now imagine that concept without Slenderman.

The Letter dropped me into a creepy environment with the directive to find scattered letters and objects in order to advance. Even by survival horror standards, I’d hesitate to call these puzzles, since it was largely just “find all the things.” It felt spooky at first, but after I wandered around looking for the random objects I needed to collect, I just got bored.

I’ve since looked up the story, and I don’t feel I missed anything great. Disagree? Let me know in the comments.

Survival horror is a niche genre, and I’m all in favor of developers taking risks with it. The Letter wants to be a creepy, mysterious game, and that’s great–except it didn’t work. If you’re looking for atmospheric horror on your Wii U, check out Master Reboot instead.