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The Medium - another horror game from Bloober Team

Konjad

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I gave it a try because I was a huge fan of old Silent Hills and they hired Akira Yamaoka for music.

So far I did not get far, played for about an hour. The gameplay seems very Silent Hill-like. It's adventure game first of foremost, you go around, find things, use them to unlock locations... you know, just like SH. There's plenty of dialogues, but not too much to irritate, and they seem of decent quality. Atmosphere is very good (but it's not a horror), music is superb. Graphics are pretty (both art and effects), but taxing when you get both "worlds" on the screen (which makes FPS drop a lot) but my GTX 1060 3GB does fine in 1920x1200 on low details, however I probably wouldn't bother buying if you have weaker GPU. The character is likeable enough, although she cracks jokes sometimes which aren't funny, and she's a bit ugly. The largest issue (and the only one so far) I have with this game is that the story is crap, it's just a ghost story (haunted resort), which is boring, uninspired, done to death in books/movies/games, and generally shit.

Overall, seems very promising so far, I just wish they went with any interesting plot instead of ghosts...


EDIT:
The only other games of Bloober Team I played were Layers of Fear and Blair WItch, which were utter garbage, so this is a serious incline.
 
Last edited:

Shackleton

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Yeah, I'm playing this a bit thanks to Gamepass and the music has been great so far. The sound mixing is a bit off though, I'm playing without subtitles and I'm struggling to hear the ghosts talk in cutscenes. Turning music down doesn't seem to make any difference in cutscenes, only in game. Feels like I'm watching a Chris Nolan film, straining to hear the conversations.

It's not the sort of game I'd normally play and only a couple of hours but performance is a mixed bag. Quite a bit of texture pop-in and frame rate drops but it does look nice enough. Will revisit thread when I've got a bit further because so far everything is completely on-rails and spoon feeding the player at every turn.
 

Shackleton

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Will revisit thread when I've got a bit further because so far everything is completely on-rails and spoon feeding the player at every turn.
All previous Bloober Team games are extraordinarily linear. Do not expect the game to "open up".

Yes, I've played a few more hours and it's still basically a walking sim with 'puzzles' that are designed for people unable to tie their own shoelaces. Several times so far I've been asked to follow a 'spirit trail' when there's only one direction to go anyway. It's like the designers didn't even trust people to press 'W' without leading them by the nose. It's a lot better with a gamepad btw, fixed camera angles do not lend themselves well to WSAD controls. It's really all boiling down to whether or not the story grabs you. It's not bad I don't think, but then again I'm not sure it's good enough to keep me playing when I've finally stuck with a character past Stag Lord in Kingmaker.

Like Konjad said, the story is very derivative and although it's done well enough I feel like I've walked round plenty of spooky, ruined hotel corridors in other games. Maybe it's worth a shot if you really, really like these kinds of cross between walking sims and basic adventures but I'm already thinking it's not going to be something I put much more time into.
 

WallaceChambers

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Started playing this and it's pretty good so far. It feels like a spruced up version of a game Microids would have put out in the mid 00s (Syberia, Still Life) for whatever that's worth. Puzzles aren't hard but they're not terrible either. DontNod-ish range of difficulty that any seasoned adventure gamer will breeze thru. Too early to meaningfully comment on the story but I like the setting and the main character well enough. Looks really good too, aside from some uncanny facial animation.

Not blowing my mind or anything but I've played far worse. Pretty early on, though, so I'll see how it goes.
 

Citizen

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I watched a few trailers and still have no idea what the gameplay is like, does it control like a point&click adventure?
 

ferratilis

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Please don't be Silent Hill, just let it rest in peace

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...ding-action-to-its-psychological-horror-focus
Bloober Team adding action to its psychological horror focus
CEO Peter Babieno says 2021 will mark a turning point for the studio behind The Medium and Layers of Fear as it pursues a broader audience
The Medium is "a project on the edge" for Bloober Team, straddling the company's old approach and its new one. Babieno says the studio plans to make "advanced AA games with AAA quality of graphics and animation, but of course a little bit smaller."

He adds, "In fact, we've been working for more than a year on another gaming project, another horror IP, and we're doing this with a very famous gaming publisher. I can't tell you who. I can't tell you what the project is, but I'm pretty sure when people realize we're working on it, they will be very excited."
 

Tom Selleck

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Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you feel, since Silent Hill 2 was the only good one anyway), I think Silent Hill is considered a bigger deal than a "AA game with AAA graphics" so it's probably some shit like Alone in the Dark.
 

ferratilis

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SH2 has amazing story and characters for sure, but for me, the first game will always be better. Maybe because I played it before 2 and 3, but it has that raw tension and might be the only game that actually benefited from shitty PS1 graphics. It added so much to its atmosphere. No games have matched that vibe since, which is why I hope they just let it rest in peace.
 

WallaceChambers

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I finished the game and it was alright. It's overly committed to being a casual game and because of that The Medium can't fully explore the interesting mechanics it has. Some of the puzzles in the game's final 3rd have a bit more of a pulse but it's too little too late.

Visually the environments look incredible and the characters are quite good too but the expressions and facial motions are off. Seems like a budget or time restraint thing, though, because there are certain cut-scenes where it's noticeably much better. Unfortunately the stellar visuals are let down by god awful performance. My computer shouldn't be running Cyberpunk 2077 with no issues but barely chugging along for The Medium. From the impressions I've read this seems to be a pretty universal issue with the game.

The mystery is pretty good, there's definitely some intrigue surrounding the Niwa resort. It plays off the history of communist Poland and that gives the narrative a bit of distinction, I guess. Although, Red Candle Game's "Detention" uses an authoritarian historical period (Taiwanese martial law) to tell a psychological horror story much more effectively. It's also an adventure game and it's better than The Medium in every way, basically.

Story is where I think the game suffers most by the Silent Hill comparison because it's decent enough in its own right but it's only very superficially like Silent Hill. Silent Hill's story telling is very metaphorical and cryptic, the game really trusts the player to put the pieces together themselves and draw their own conclusions. By comparison The Medium is extremely heavy handed, diving into the minds of its characters with overt flashback sequences that leave essentially nothing to interpretation whatsoever.

I'd give the game like a 6/10 maybe a 7/10 if you enjoy very casual games.
I don't place a de facto primacy of metaphorical story telling over more conventional stuff but Bloober Team shouldn't heave leaned so heavily into the Silent Hill comparison, specifically invoking Silent Hill 2 numerous times, if the game was going to be like this.
 

Venser

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The strategic partnership of Konami Digital Entertainment and Bloober Team
Bloober_0-1.jpg

KONAMI, one of the world’s largest game publisher, and Bloober Team, have signed a strategic cooperation agreement. It will include jointly developing selected contents and exchanging know-how.


It is a historic day for me and the culmination of several years of our work. The fact that such a renowned company as KONAMI has decided to strategically cooperate with the Bloober Team means that we also joined the world leaders in gaming and became an equal partner for the leading players in this market. – comments Piotr Babieno, president of the Bloober Team.

As part of the agreement, the partners declared cooperation in the development of contents and the exchange of know-how.

– We have been providing unique entertainment content and ways to enjoy it through the use of information technology. In the digital entertainment industry, significant changes in the business environment are expected in the future. We look forward to combining Bloober Team’s and our respective characteristics and strengths to create high-quality contents. KONAMI – comments Hideki Hayakawa Representative Director, President Konami Digital Entertainment

Konami Digital Entertainment, which is the core company of Konami Group, develops entertaining content for mobile, console and card games. The company is known for global franchises such as eFootball PES, Metal Gear, Silent Hill, Castlevania, and Contra, as well as the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game series.

https://ir.blooberteam.com/2021/06/...onami-digital-entertainment-and-bloober-team/

Looks like they're gonna be making a new shitty Silent Hill game.



 

Burning Bridges

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It will be forever a mystery to me how someone could spend 40$ to watch a boring movie with embarassing shit music and repulsive females.
 

Wirdschowerdn

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OT:

Bloober Team Was Developing Alien Game Set in Middle Ages - What We Know
We reveal: Bloober Team, authors of Medium and Layers of Fear, have been working on a game from the Alien franchise set in the Middle Ages.


390136379.jpg

It has long been rumored that the company was involved in the production of a new installment of the Silent Hill franchise, and we, in turn, can reveal today that until recently, the authors of The Medium and Layers of Fear were the main candidates for another production starring the Alien, set in a very unexpected period of history. The idea was actually very detailed, original, and, well, great.

Table of Contents:
Rumors about an Alien game developed by Bloober Team have been circulating behind the scenes of Polish gamedev for at least three years, maybe even longer – today it's hard to even remember when it all started. In July 2021 an inquisitive user dug up information about the company's upcoming projects from the documents Bloober submitted to the Creative Europe, a program launched by the European Commission. The documentation contained, among others, info about the fact that Bloober Team was working on a project codenamed Black, which was to be a first-person action game focusing on exploration, survival and close-quarters combat. The project was supposed to be story-driven, and the protagonist would have to make difficult moral decisions. The whole thing would be set in a very specific period of history, namely the Middle Ages, and the enemies would be... a mysterious race of aliens. See for yourself:


Alien from Bloober Team – what would it be?
Presented from a first person perspective, the gameplay is a mixture of exploration, survival and combat. The players take in the world by exploring the environment, interacting with characters and taking part in story-driven set pieces. As the story progresses, they shape the narrative by making a series of moral choices that will lead to one of at least two endings. At times, the player engages in visceral hand-to-hand, or melee, combat. Although sparse and sometimes optional, the combat always poses a challenge and builds tension, suitable for a survival horror game. The hero is constantly outnumbered, or overpowered, and can easily perish if he is not careful. When combat is not an option, the players will be tasked with simply staying alive in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. They can accomplish that by means of stealthily avoiding, improvising or outmaneuvering the opposition. These segments, including encounters with the alien enemies, will serve to truly ratchet up the tension and provide the game with a much-needed sense of terror. Will you evade your enemies, distract them of face them head on?

Key features:

  1. unique setting, the unconventional blend of the Middle Ages and alien species
  2. mature story of the dark aspects of faith and humanity with the alien lifeform as catalyst for character development
  3. ambiguous moral choices (should we punish those who have wronged us, or stand with them against a greater evil? Should we save a child at the cost of our own life?)
  4. mix of stealth and intense, visceral combat (hand-to-hand / melee)
  5. historical setting makes the story more realistic and relatable, allows for potential spin-offs set in other historical periods (ala Assassin's Creed)

Aliens in the Middle Ages
Both players and journalists alike did not pay much attention to all of this information at the time because they had a completely different issue on their minds: the question everyone was asking back then was whether Bloober Team was making the new Silent Hill, which skewed the perspective and compelled people to try to fit the cult-classic franchise with either of the descriptions. Speculation was cut short by Tomasz Gawlikowski quite rapidly, as he stated on IGN that the first project (codename Dum Spiro) was scrapped after numerous iterations, while the original idea for the latter (Black) had also been changed and was something completely different than laid out in the document.

94036562.jpg

Alien: Isolation developed by Creative Assembly
Gawlikowski did not lie, because indeed, Bloober Team was at that time forced to modify the project significantly. Why? The information we have obtained independently and confirmed at several sources shows that a deal made by Disney in March 2019 prevented the developers from realizing their ideas. The deal was the acquisition of 20th Century Fox along with all its assets.

For now, however, let's go back to the description presented above, because it coincides with behind-the-scenes rumors concerning the Alien Bloober project from a few years ago. Polish developers somehow concluded that the perfect setting for the new xenomorph game would be... the Middle Ages, and the monster itself would become an object of worship for a group of cultists, treating the creature as god. As usual in such stories, the alien would eventually wake up or break free, and the player would be the medieval version of Amanda Ripley, challenged with facing the monster.

The whole concept seemed like a crazy conversion of Alien: Isolation from the outset. The main difference would be that in the Dark Ages, we would have to use completely different tools to survive the confrontation. There’s also the aspect of combat itself, which was rather negligible in Creative Assembly's game. Of course, we do not know how extensive it would be here, but it would certainly be present in some form or other, as confirmed by the above description.


Brilliant marketing idea
That's not all. Bloober Team had a fantastic idea for the reveal of the game. According to information we got a few years back, the studio wanted to announce a new project under a working title (probably Black Plague), but they would not reveal the fact that it would be about the xenomorph. The intention was to feed information about the medieval setting and a secret cult worshiping a mysterious deity first, so as to outline the general tropes of the game. Only later, possibly in the second trailer, it would turn out that the deity was the xenomorph itself. It would be a huge surprise and it would surely pack a hell of a punch. The plan was brilliant.


Why was the Medieval Alien cancelled?
So what went wrong in the end? Well, it was mostly a matter of coincidence. Bloober Team introduced their idea to 20th Century Fox (the holder of the rights to the Alien franchise) a few years ago, and it met with an enthusiastic reception. According to our findings, Ridley Scott himself supposedly looked at the project and he, too, thought it was a great idea (although we don't know how much truth there’s to it). If a Polish studio from Krakow would be given green light to use the brand, perhaps today we would be playing the medieval version of Alien: Isolation. Unfortunately, Disney got involved.

Aliens: Stalker

The idea for setting the Alien in the Middle Ages is not entirely new. In 1998, Dark Horse Comics published the comic book Aliens: Stalker, written and illustrated by David Wenzel. The comic was about a clash between... the Vikings and an Alien. The mighty warrior Rainulf faced a creatur "with iron skin, dagger teeth, and blood that burns stone – known in the far-flung future as an Alien" (quote from the publisher's materials). It was one of the few comic books about the Alien in historical context. Another one was Aliens: Earth Angel, released in 1997, in which the Alien landed on Earth in the 1950s.


The acquisition of 20th Century Fox brought the project to a standstill, as new decision-makers apparently though the initiative of the Polish studio wasn't all that awesome. We don't know the details, but it's not difficult to put 2 and 2 together here. Anyway, this is confirmed by the aforementioned statement by Tomasz Gawlikowski for IGN, who made it clear that the project called Black was not buried for good, but that we will also definitely not see it in the same form as initially planned. Well, that's a shame – it could be one of the wackiest, most surprising Alien adaptations ever.

We invited Bloober Team to officially comment on the matter. They responded as follows: “As Bloober Team, we're concerned with making horror games, not commenting on rumors”.

TL;DR

Disney killed it. Fuck Disney.
 

Zombra

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"Could have been one of the most surprising Alien adaptations ever."

Yeah, because Bloober Team is known for its original ideas. Fuck them.
 

Drop Duck

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This tuber is hopelessly naive and obnoxious at the same time. The way he assumes that all the horror tropes are stolen from a single source tells you he has had little exposure to the genre when almost everything except the looping hallway in P.T. are common as dirt. Crying woman, twitchy movements, disfigured ghost, jumpscares, ghosts that kill you with their hands? P.T. and Layers of Fear share these but they're not remotely original at all in either game.

The original Silent Hill shamelessly ripped of its own sources, like Jacob's Ladder, so now that franchise was the originator or twitchy monsters and a transformation to a nightmare world?

He goes completely off the rails and start hallucinating when he assumes a deformed cripple must be a reference to Aphex Twin and couldn't be a reference to or taken from The Hills Have Eyes.

Towards the end he starts getting insane, thinking that having an otherworld and using religious iconography in a horror game means it is a ripoff of Silent Hill. And they used tau crosses just like Beksinski as well as using similar organic architecture, but so what? If artists aren't completely original with mental problems they either copy Giger or him and they are open about their influences there. Is it about time video game developers discovered Wayne Barlowe? Yes.

sPBSD9e.jpg


So the devs aren't digging up obscure pop culture to steal from all the time but use mainstream references, like doing a Guitar Hero style game one time when that was popular? Big whoop. One of their games features a reference to The Shining? Too many horror games does that to even count.

Anyone who watched that video and nodded their head in agreement should be ashamed because you have to be really dumb to start seeing things like that guy does.

qB9T7hq.gif
 

Zombra

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I just realized what a missed opportunity it was that we never started calling this The Tedium. Too late now but if there is ever a reason to talk about this crummy game again let's not forget.
 

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