"On the plus side, I got a new character I think people are going to love." - Henry Stein
This article may contain unmarked details of spoilers. If you wish not to read without spoiling yourself, play the game, watch the cartoon, or read the book first, depending on the article's topic.
The Searchers resemble human-based creatures entirely made of black ink, and are roughly about the same size of Henry. They have very smooth flexible bodies, elongated arms, and the lower part of their bodies seems to melt into puddles of ink. Whenever they crawl to move, they leave ink trails behind.
Their ghoulish, human-like faces sport a gaping mouth, a protruding jaw, two indentations in the place of eyes, and broad movable eyebrows.
Behavior
They were first witnessed as puddles of inky, bubbly slime in their idle state. Upon being approached, they materialize and attack. The puddles will still remain after killing the Searchers.
When spawned, the Searchers start following Henry until they get the chance to attack. Upon hitting them with a weapon, they will collapse into ink and disappear, allowing Henry to continue. On occasions, they can come in packs. Sometimes, a Searcher can unexpectedly spawn to startle the player.
However, the Searchers can be very dangerous if they crowd against Henry in a large pack. If Henry takes enough damage from attacks, he will be killed, sending him to a Bendy statue to re-spawn.
Strategy
If Henry manages to outrun the Searchers or get inside the Little Miracle Station, they will vanish and will only reappear if Henry approaches them. Timing may be difficult since they are almost as fast as Henry.
The Searchers make their first appearance as the only main enemies in the second chapter. They are also the first encountered enemies. Their moaning sound is first heard when opening the entrance to the Music Department hall after completing the first puzzle. The Searchers start to become active after activating the "POWER" switch from the stairwell to bring lighting to the area. Before the pack in this department spawns, one Searcher's slime form will be noticed dropping above from the pipe atop the department's logo.
The second wave of Searchers are later encountered in the recording studio after activating the first ink pump from Sammy's sanctuary. After wiping the second wave out, another Searcher can also spawn in the band area and even inside Sammy's sanctuary.
A unique Searcher known as Swollen Jack is later encountered inside the infirmary while Henry is searching for the stolen second valve.
Finally, they are encountered in the ritual room after the off-screen "murder" of Sammy by Ink Bendy's hands.
The Searchers reappear in the third chapter. They spawn in every location except the safe house and both locations on Level 14 as soon as Henry starts his errands for Physical Alice. Once killed, the Searcher will re-spawn if Henry goes back to the area after a few minutes.
On Level 9, during the task of defending Physical Alice's room from the Butcher Gang enemies, Searchers will spawn rapidly around the inner sanctum if Henry walks close to the area near the elevator, making the battle confined and risky.
They make their first appearance in a hallway outside the base of Allison Angel and Tom. They can also be seen after the boss fight with Sammy in the Lost Harbor (built by the Searchers themselves with the Lost Ones) as ink pools appear, serving as spawn for the Searchers. They work alongside their counterparts, the Miner Searchers, and the Lost Ones to fight against Allison, Tom, and Henry.
Trivia
General
The Searchers had their own Patreon named "The Searcher Dance Party", where Mike Mood showcases their beta models as rag dolls doing random things. Due to theMeatly Games' (before as Kindly Beast) Patreon account disabled, the post was deleted.
The current quality of the Searcher's official rigged model is unofficially released onto Steam's Source Filmmaker Workshop and included in the second SFM pack along with Ink Bendy, Piper, Striker, Fisher, the Swollen Searcher, and the Projectionist's model.
The Searcher has an unused animation of them crawling without tilting their body side to side.
Chapter 2: The Old Song
Beta version of the Searcher.
Their model from Chapter 2's first release is slightly different, and they are slower and more fragile. Each hand possesses three fingers instead of five, with two longer ones closely resembling a tuning fork. Their arms seem to also be thinner than the new model. Their face also seems to be painted partly with grayish-white colors (yellowish-brown due to the game's lighting). Instead of crawling, they just move in a similar fashion to the slug's movement while swaying their arms.
The early version of their "idle" model appears to look like chunk of clay instead of slime, and killing the Searchers will cause their ink chunk to shrink away. They were removed upon Chapter 3's release but re-added with newer design for the release of Chapter 4 update.
They collapse into pieces whenever they damaged Henry, or even simply running into obstacles or walls. Afterwards when getting killed, the glob-like masses where the Searchers spawned from slowly shrink into the floor and dissipate.
One each can be spawned from the entrance of Sammy's office and near from the hallway between the Music Department hall and the recording studio while Henry is preparing to solve Sammy's music puzzle.
There is a bug when pausing the game during the encounter, the Searchers' animation will freeze but still moving to make them "slide" towards Henry before collapsing into pieces when close enough. Moments later afterwards, the Searchers will re-spawn but their models are not showing up, leaving their ink trails only visible.
From Chapter 2's game files of the first pre-update before Chapter 3 was released, there are several unused audio files of the Searchers' dying moans, meant to occur when killing them. These sounds never occur in-game however. Upon Chapter 3's release while the Searchers' models are updated, one of the unused death audio files is recycled for newer said sounds.
After activating the pump switch from Sammy's office, if bringing one Searcher (such as from the infirmary) to the Music Department then get hit by Sammy, the Searcher will keep attacking and still receiving Henry damage. Henry will then die with enough damage, but will teleport to the ritual room with Sammy rather than the Bendy statue while the ink effects for respawning still occur. This bug also happens with the Miner Searcher.
Chapter 3: Rise and Fall
When walking to Alice's entrance on Level 9's inner sanctum location to do Physical Alice's next fetch quest while the Searcher is following after Henry, it will "retreat" to vanish away, similar to the result when Henry head inside the Miracle Station or outrunning.
Chapter 5: The Last Reel
The Searcher seen in one of the storyboard sketches.
In one of the random sketches in the storyboard papers found in Joey's apartment, there is a Searcher wearing a fancy but ridiculous-looking gardener hat.
