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The Medium - another horror game from Bloober Team

Zombra

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Zombra

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One thing that does look interesting here is the split-screen multiple world setting.



There does appear to be at least a bare minimum of actual gameplay here - turn on the power so you can open the door with the electric switch. Having to look around to see all the clues is nice too.
This is looking less like the awful Layers of Fear and more like the tolerable >observer_. Not something I would spend money on yet but might be worth playing for free.
 

Zombra

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It wasn't on my watch list. Is it like Resident Evil ?
Even the worst Resident Evil game has gameplay. Bloober Team has a history of making high quality visual art and nothing else. Nothing we've seen has shown that gameplay will be any good.
 

Infinitron

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https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/1293160/view/2950381917903660528

IMPORTANT MESSAGE: New release date!

After much careful thought and consideration, today we have made the difficult decision to delay the launch of The Medium to January 28, 2021. It wasn’t an easy choice to make, but one made due to the Covid-19 situation in Poland, as well as the current schedule of other games on the market. Bloober Team remains committed to delivering our biggest, most ambitious, fear-inducing experience to date.

The additional development time will allow us to add further polish, ensuring we deliver our innovative, genre-pushing vision of interactive psychological horror. Rest assured, the delay will not stop us sharing information with you, and you can expect us to unravel a few more layers of The Medium’s great mystery soon.

Stay tuned and stay safe!
Bloober Team
 

Zombra

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Wow, they're really going in hard on the Silent Hill multiple worlds thing. I'm liking that split screen effect. This will probably be a good movie where you press buttons sometimes.

Not excited about the stealth sections though. The stealth gameplay in >observer_ was not good.

Also underwhelmed by the little girl character ...
Creepy little girl ... it's been done but okay
Creepy little girl, wearing a cracked porcelain mask ... pushing it but sure
Creepy little girl, wearing a cracked porcelain mask, who's missing an arm and has patches of missing skin ... too much
Creepy little girl, wearing a cracked porcelain mask, who's missing an arm and has patches of missing skin, and has a dumb spooky name no one would ever name a child ... way overboard
Creepy little girl, wearing a cracked porcelain mask, who's missing an arm and has patches of missing skin, and has a dumb spooky name no one would ever name a child, who mysteriously teleports around if you're not watching closely ... please just stop
 

WallaceChambers

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I've seen a lot of people online who seem disappointed that this an adventure game rather than survival horror. I've never played a Bloober Team game before so idk what to expect but it looks pretty good to me. They probably shouldn't have leaned so heavily into the Silent Hill comparison if it wasn't actually going to be that type of game.
 

WallaceChambers

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wait what

From all the gameplay I've seen the game is all exploration, story and puzzles with the occasional scripted hide & seek set piece. I don't think there's any combat or resource management.

From The Devs in a WCCFTech interview:

You confirmed that The Medium will feature combat through the protagonist's unique powers. How prevalent is the action element in this game, then?

While action is prevalent throughout The Medium, it’s not the focus of the game. Instead, we
use it to punctuate and enhance the story we are telling. We really want players to experience and feel the mystery alongside Marianne as she unravels it.

Our action sequences are more about Marianne’s survival than combat, so lean closer to those in Amnesia than something more action-focused, like Resident Evil. As such Marianne’s powers are primarily there to aid in her defense and help her escape the enemies she encounters.

Maybe I'm wrong but it sounds like he's describing sequences like the one at 13 minutes (in the latest gameplay trailer) which is basically just a really simple scripted puzzle.
 

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https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-01-27-the-medium-review

The Medium review - limited but enjoyable old school horror
A game of two halves.

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Bloober Team goes back to the classics for possibly its best effort yet.

Death is everywhere here. You can feel it. You can smell it. I know that makes no sense - how can you tell that from a video game? - and yet you know that's what it smells like, a muddy, earthy, cloying scent that sticks in your throat as you tiptoe across the razor-thin edge between Here and There. Light and shadow. Life and death.

Death is all Marianne has ever known. It begins with The Medium's opening line - "It all starts with a dead girl" - and doesn't waver right up until the credits roll. Even in this reality - her safe place, supposedly - she's an undertaker, and that's where we find her as her story begins, preparing to bury the only man that ever showed her any kindness.

The duality of The Medium isn't subtle. It draws heavily on the ying-yang of contrast - good and bad; up and down; happiness and sadness - and recycles it endlessly, thematically and literally. There's no attempt to conceal Bloober's unabashed affection of old school horror, either. There have been flickers of it throughout the studio's horror-heavy back catalogue, but no game has come quite as close to The Medium in terms of unadulterated adoration. That said, there's a reason why some of those old horror tropes have been left in the past. The fixed camera angles undoubtedly enable the developer to spin a more sophisticated visual narrative, as well as heighten tension and uneasiness, but I am forever impaling Marianne on environmental hazards I simply can't see. The tank controls, too, are better in theory than practice.

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Medium rare.

You no doubt already know that Troy Baker lends his talents to terrifying antagonist The Maw, and yes, he's predictably wonderful as it - the creature's guttural mutterings and furtive soliloquies hint at something vaguely human, or at least attempting to appear so - but otherwise, the voice performances are a little uneven. I can't say I particularly warmed to Marianne, either; though fearless, her character was a tad too one-note for me. It was the story that kept me gripped, and while that too perhaps lacked the depth I'd been hoping for, it's nonetheless an intriguing yarn that - like its title - was neither too long nor too short, but... well, medium length, at around eight-ish hours.

But oh my lord, is it beautiful here. I know it's weird to say that - this netherworld is a burnt, broken place; it's not somewhere you'd choose to holiday - but there's an undeniable beauty here, too, secreted between the alien flora, fungi and fear. Juxtaposed just-so between the piles of skulls and frozen death masks, Bloober's canny use of fixed vignettes means every shot is perfectly dreadful and dreadfully perfect, and only further enhanced by the soundscapes sculpted by composer Arkadiusz Reikowski and Silent Hill sound director and producer, Akira Yamaoka.

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Split the difference.
The inspiration drawn from celebrated Polish artist Zdzisław Beksiński (whose work I've now fallen wholly and inextricably in love with) is all over it, yes, but to Bloober's credit, the world it's painted is so much more than mere homage. As I progressed through Marianne's story, the set-pieces reminded me of several games that have come before it - Alice: Madness Returns, Control, Silent Hill, and even Portal 2, to name but a few - and given every single one of them is celebrated for its striking visual vocabulary, that can't be a bad thing.

And if there was a photo mode I'd have endlessly abused it. I suspect that's weird to say, too, but it's true. While it starts out muted - at first, Marianne's alternate reality is painted with mud and rust - the further you progress, the more vibrant it'll become, as though each time she returns to the real world, she leaves a fragment of herself behind to soften its palette and fill it with pale blues, mossy greens, and ruby reds.

The Medium isn't quite as scary as prior Bloober offerings, though. Beyond one early, unexpected surprise (I still have bruised knees from where my legs collided with the underside of my desk), it's a sedate affair, choosing to let its environments unsettle you rather than jumpscares. While I admit I missed some of Layer of Fears' creative shocks, I can't say this is to the game's detriment, and may even win over new horror fans who crave atmosphere over scripted scares.

jpg

Not half bad.

Moving through two realities simultaneously is every bit as disorientating as it sounds initially, but Bloober overcomes this with clever engineering that goes beyond merely projecting two versions of the same scene. More often than not, splitscreen cut-scenes portray slightly different perspectives, and what you'll see in one isn't always apparent in the other. This means you'll find your gaze flicking from one side of the screen to the other - some splits are horizontal; others are vertical - in search of the irregularities, like a macabre spot-the-difference puzzle.

Talking of puzzles; cerebral they are not. I've been stuck on Bloober puzzles for hours in the past - Blair Witch stumped me good and proper several times - but The Medium's offerings are less opaque, and only a couple outstay their welcome. Marianne has just three tricks up her psychic sleeve; Insight - the power to see beyond the veil and spy secrets an ordinary gaze will miss; Spirit Blast, which enables her to shoot out a powerful shock of energy to overload electrics or shake off enemies; and the ability to have an Out of Body Experience.

Yeah. I know. It sounds strange, and it is a bit. The former's pretty cool, enabling her to get auditory visions of the past from everyday items, as well as construct Echoes, ghostly memories of the past that help Marianne piece together what once happened here. Spirit Blast, while ostentatious, is underutilised. Out of Body Experience, on the other hand, enables her to divorce her spirit from her physical form to access something - usually a lock - in the spirit realm.
She can also absorb and channel psychic energy by locating Spirit Wells - a font of psychic power, I guess you'd call it - that can also be used to ward off denizens as well as open doors. Your Out of Body Experience is always time-limited, though, as her spiritual side will slowly dissipate until you return her to her physical body. Dawdle too long, and she'll die.

It's perhaps no surprise, then, that given its so heavily constrained by the careful camera angles and tourniquet-tight storytelling, the gameplay is so rigid it might as well be on rails. Sadly, this results in an astonishing lack of organic exploration. Maybe it's greedy to want more, but I do wish I could've spent more time scurrying around that topsy-turvy place, peeking into every creepy cranny and unmasking every secret.

Beyond this sedate puzzling, Marianne will find herself either skulking about or fleeing for her life. Again, the team has seemingly learned from mistakes such as Layer of Fear 2's tedious scripted death sequences, and while there's no doubt that making her run full-pelt towards the camera is both terrifying and a nod to horror games of yore, it gets old quickly. One breathlessly brilliant exception, however, sends you continuously catapulting between worlds as you run for your life, trying to avoid the hazards as you go.

Yes, Marianne's world is one of duality - good and evil; heaven and hell; life and death - there is little negative to weigh down Bloober Team's lofty ambition. Even though it substitutes scripted scares for an unsettling atmosphere instead - something I fear not all fans will be happy with - The Medium is the studio's most successful, accessible offering yet, and a sign that Bloober continues to improve, mature, and innovate. I cannot wait for its next terrifying adventure.

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-medium-review/

THE MEDIUM REVIEW
Third-person horror with fixed camera angles still has lots of life in it. (And death.)

We're all going to die some day, so I won't waste your time: The Medium is one of the best third-person horror games I've ever played. Bloober Team, the studio behind Blair Witch and the Layers of Fear series, has completely outdone those less ambitious games with the fantastically written, emotionally grounded story of Marianne, a young woman who can see and communicate with spirits. What it lacks in technical polish it makes up for with chilling set pieces and thoughtful plot developments.

The Medium plays like an old school Resident Evil game, minus the guns. You navigate Marianne around crumbling, abandoned hotels and claustrophobic Cold War bunkers from fixed camera angles, which can be cumbersome, but it's an effective design choice. Like the games that inspired it, The Medium is excellent at making you feel like you're always being watched, and that danger could be lurking just out of view at any time.

What you do is fairly simple: Most sections involve finding hidden objects, solving puzzles, or sneaking past ghastly enemies against whom you are mostly powerless. The added gimmick is that Marianne can sometimes see into the spirit world, which is handled by splitting your screen in half. All inputs affect the real and spirit world versions of Marianne identically, but things are complicated by small differences in the terrain or enemies that only exist in one world. Bloober definitely didn't push this idea to its limits. Most of the puzzles are fairly simple, and there were only a couple of those Portal-like "A-ha!" moments that made me feel like I'd done something really clever. But the lack of roadblocks keeps the pacing fairly brisk, which works well with the kind of story that's being told.

Ghost story
That story is undoubtedly the star. The Medium is exquisitely paced and plotted, with multidimensional characters and a complex, but not convoluted, supernatural mystery to uncover. I had several running theories about what was going on at the haunted Niwa Resort that all made sense, but the true answer ended up being even more elegant and poignant than I guessed—and yet the solution didn't come out of left field, M. Night Shyamalan style.

Over its course, The Medium asks what makes a person evil, and what the difference is between the innately sadistic and those who are turned into monsters by cycles of violence—though it doesn't apologize for anyone. In untangling these themes it explores domestic abuse and even genocide, but these concepts aren't displayed gratuitously for mere shock value. It's some of the sharpest writing I've seen in a videogame in quite a long time.

This is all supported by a spectacular voice cast. From the intrepid but troubled Marianne to the enigmatic avenger Thomas to a deeply unnerving archvillain brought to life by Troy Baker, every character is realized with exceptional emotional depth and authenticity. The central struggle Thomas faces, in particular, is a heartbreaking story of a man in an impossible situation, and all of its highs and lows hit me right in the heart. It's easy to find common ground with characters who are trying to do the right thing in a world with no right answers.

Composers Arkadiusz Reikowski and Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill franchise) back the exploration with a haunting, melancholy score, and then bring intense, disturbing tracks when we're fleeing for our life—it's music you'll notice and appreciate. And every rundown hallway and spooky Polish forest feels alive thanks to some of the best positional audio and layered ambience I've heard in a game: Lifelike echoes bounce off of a concrete tunnel, and the ramblings of a creature hunting you pace back and forth between the left and right audio channels.

It looks pretty stunning, too, with overgrown, post-Soviet ruins in the real world and a macabre, yellow-tinged spirit world as its surreal mirror. The textures, color balance, and lighting evoke a range of moods: intrigue, unease, and unadulterated horror.

Niwa Resort is layered with small details from roof to paving stones, including crinkled old Polish magazines accurate to the 1990s era. When Marianne is split between worlds, walls of human flesh and spectral moths are juxtaposed with the mundanity of an abandoned classroom on the other side of the screen. It gives the sense that you're never really safe—when the split screen effect goes away and you're just looking at the classroom, how do you know what's going on over on the other side?

The character models are the one area where detail is lacking, especially in contrast to how fantastic everything else looks. They stand out with a somewhat doll-like appearance, and stiff animations. They won't always connect with the objects they're interacting with.

There are performance issues, too. While I was generally able to maintain a good 45-60 fps on my RTX 2060 Super, there is a significant amount of hitching when you first enter the spirit world or transition between gameplay and a cutscene. This took the bite out of some key moments, like a monster jumping out at you for the first time.

The RTX effects can look stunning, but they dropped me down closer to a 30-35 fps baseline with some dips into the mid-20s. The "RTX On" setting disables certain effects dynamically when performance dips too low, which is kind of nice, but can lead to weirdness like water flickering between RTX and non-RTX shading in a jarring way. The "Force On" option will prevent this, but it made certain areas with complex point lighting, particularly in the spirit world, an unplayable slideshow. So neither setting is completely ideal.

On another PC with an RTX 2070 Super, we managed framerates in the 40s to 60s at 1440p with RTX On and DLSS set to high quality, but also ran into occasional slideshows if RTX was bumped up to the highest setting.

Despite some technical foibles and the simple, unchallenging stealth and puzzle solving, I fell completely in love with The Medium. The writing stacks up to the very best in the genre with its well-crafted mystery that explores difficult, often heartbreakingly relatable themes on its way to a satisfying, though not uplifting conclusion. Top-notch actors realize complex and memorable heroes and monsters along the way, and the score, sound design, and art are gorgeous, pulling together an unforgettable, cohesive whole. The Medium is going to stick with me for a long time.

HE VERDICT
92

THE MEDIUM
A third-person horror game that's elevated by some of the sharpest writing and acting in the genre.
 

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