Searchers

This article refers to the ink species. For other uses, see Searchers (disambiguation).

Searchers are a race of ink creatures who were once humans before migrating to the Cycle by the Ink Machine.

Physical appearance

The Searchers are creatures resembling human torsos and entirely made of black ink, with the lower part of their bodies seem to melt into puddles of ink, and whenever they crawl to move, they leave ink trails behind. Their ghoulish faces sport a gaping mouth and two indentations in the place of eyes.

From their first incarnation, the Searchers are extremely smooth-textured, with very flexible bodies, elongated arms, a human-like face complete with a nose, and the lower parts of their bodies always attach to the floor.

In their second incarnation, they appear to have a more human-like anatomy, with a large gap-like mouth and empty eye-sockets.

Intelligence

The Searchers are souls of humans trapped in the Cycle and they sometimes come in larger groups. They cannot speak but only make groaning noises, and due to lack of legs they can only crawl around with their arms but capable of sprinting and jumping. Some percentage of humanity still remains in them, and such were able to write letters in ink with their fingers.

Known Searchers

Known individuals

• Swollen Jack - An ink form of Jack Fain and only known Searcher individual with the original identity. He is a Swollen Searcher wearing a bowler hat.
• Searcher Boss - A gargantuan Searcher wearing a fedora hat. Although it has no real name or identity, it was rarely encountered at the Heavenly Toys department.
• Sammy Searcher - A rare heavy-hitting Searcher individual wearing a mask like that of Sammy Lawrence. It was found at the Cycle version of Joey Drew's office.

Known variants

• Common Searchers - The basic and most well-known types of Searchers found across every places of the ink realm.
• Swollen Searchers - Harmless, bloated cousins to normal Searchers known to be hunted for thick ink, which were ranged from normal size to extra thick size. They inhabit Level 11 and elsewhere in few other places.
• Miner Searchers - Slightly large-sized versions of Searchers notable for wearing miner helmets, hence their name. Stronger than their regular variants, they have a bigger amount of health and deals twice a damage.
• Searcher Minibosses - Larger, stronger variants that were encountered around the Heavenly Toys department at one point. Similar to the Miner Searchers, these variants inflect heavy damage but contains less amount of health.

Behind the scenes

Searchers are one of the recurring enemies that first appear in Chapter 2: The Old Song of Bendy and the Ink Machine as the game's first ever encountered enemy groups, then later appears in Chapter 3: Rise and Fall and Chapter 5: The Last Reel. They return in Bendy and the Dark Revival, appearing in Chapter 1: Drawn to Darkness, Chapter 2: The Demon's Domain, and Chapter 5: The Dark Revival.

Development

The Searchers were made when developing the second chapter's original DLC release for Bendy and the Ink Machine. The concept art by theMeatly originally depicts the enemies to have a more human-like face with void-esque eyes and larger jaw, a lumpier body but with smoother arms, and hands with three fingers instead of five. They were also originally called the "Seekers".

In the first release of Chapter 2, their model slightly resembles their original concept art, and they were slower and more fragile. Instead of crawling, they slide after Henry. They would immediately collapse into pieces by simply running into Henry for damage, or even into obstacles and walls. Since the DLC release of Chapter 3: Rise and Fall, they were given a completely new model redesign.

Also, the early version of their "idle" model appears to look like an inanimate chunk of clay instead of bubbling slime, and killing the Searchers will cause their ink chunk to shrink away; those were removed for the DLC release of Chapter 3: Rise and Fall but re-added with a newer design upon the DLC release of Chapter 4: Colossal Wonders.

Patreon page

The Searchers had their own Patreon named "The Searcher Dance Party", where Mike D showcases their beta models as rag dolls performed randomly. Due to theMeatly Games' Patreon account being disabled, the post was deleted.