The Medium

Combat-less psychological horror game that offers an unsettling atmosphere

Unfamiliar with Bloober's Team's previous work, this title caught my eye during a reveal last year at a Microsoft event. I can't remember which event but it gave me a Silent Hill vibe with its nightmarish Spirit World. Although very different from Silent Hill, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this game. Its a psychological horror game that focuses on telling a story and creating a sense of uneasiness through its environments. It is played in third-person and uses a lot of classic Resident Evil-style fixed cameras. They did a good job of bringing those classic camera angles to the modern era as they are fixed but dynamic.

Before I get started, I played on my laptop (RTX 3060 graphics card) through Game Pass so results may vary depending on your setup or if you plan on playing on XBox Series X|S.

STORY
// Unique and interesting

The story takes place in 1999 in Poland and you play as Marianne, a medium that can speak with the dead and interact with the Spirit World. She helps spirits to move on. As she's helping her deceased adoptive father find eternal rest, she receives a phone call from a stranger named Thomas. Somehow, he knows about Marianne's recurring dream of a girl being shot by a lake. He also knows of her mysterious powers and offers to explain its origins but asks her to meet with him in Niwa Resort. Niwa Resort is an abandoned communist-era vacation resort that seems to be haunted. There was a massacre a few years earlier which prompted the government to shut the resort down.

Without going into spoiler territory, I thought the story was very interesting and unique. I had a lot of fun discovering bits and pieces of what happened in Niwa.

GAMEPLAY
// Combat-less but fun nonetheless

If you come into this game thinking it is an action game or a survival horror, you may come out empty-handed. There is no actuel combat in the game. You do have to fight back in some instances but its mostly by putting up a Spirit Shield at the right moment. In The Medium, you will be mostly running around, discovering clues and items to advance through the environments much like older survival horror games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil. The puzzles are really easy to solve so don't expect hard brain teasers. There are some stealth elements which I didn't really like but they are fairly short in general. I didn't like them because if the enemy touches you, it's normally an insta-death and the problem I had with this is that sometimes, the monster would touch me from the other side of cover and I'd die. Thankfully, the game saves pretty often.

When I first saw the game, I thought the twin worlds mechanic would be much more prominent but turns out its story-driven. As you progress through the story, the game will either offer you"two worlds" to navigate at the same time, one world at a time (sometimes the real world, sometimes the Spirit World and sometimes you can switch when you find mirrors). The Two Worlds mechanic make you control Marianne through both worlds that are modeled almost the same way. Sometimes things will block your progress in one world and you'll need to solve a puzzle in the other. I thought navigating through the two worlds simultaneously would get confusing because you're basically looking at two screens but its actually really well done.

SOUND AND VISUALS
// Stiff animations but beautiful game with an awesome atmospheric soundtrack

I thought the game looked beautiful. The details in the worlds are great, the character designs are fine. However, I did find some animations a little stiff and thought the eyes looked a little....dead? And when Marianne talks outside of cutscenes, she doesn't always move her lips. Nothing to really deter from the experience but it can distract some people.

The soundtrack is great and features Akira Yamaoka of Silent Hill fame. I am a big fan of his previous work and it really brings the eerie ambiance to life. I thought the music was way louder than the voices and sounds so you might want to tune it down a bit when you start playing! The voice acting in general is pretty good though sometimes it can be a little inconsistent.

This horror game focuses a lot on offering a feeling of uneasiness. It is not scary per se, and it does offer some (cheap) jump scares, but its main appeal is that you don't feel comfortable while playing.

STABILITY

// Very stable gameplay for my rig but heard it can suffer sometimes

For my part, my playthrough didn't suffer from that many bugs (except the aforementioned stealth bug) and I didn't get any frame rate issues. I have heard that some people did suffer from them however. I did have one crash though.

OVERALL
// I loved it

The Medium is combat-less psychological horror game that offers an unsettling atmosphere. It kept me wondering what happens next as the story unfolded before my eyes. If you come in expecting a "detective-like" Silent Hill game, then you should come away satisfied. Just don't expect there to be an action game.

STATISTICS
// For stats nerds out there!

My average playing time: 8 hours

# of Playable Characters: 2

# of Players: 1

Microtransactions: Nope