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The Medium (2021)

Bloober Team

Mac · PC (Microsoft Windows) · PlayStation 5 · Xbox Series X|S

3.20 from 328 ratings

812 members have it in their collection · 17 playing now · 252 backlogged · 200 wish listed

How long? Main story 8h · with extras 9h · 100% 8h (from 24 logged playthroughs)

Discover a dark mystery only a medium can solve. Explore the real world and the spirit world at the same time. Use your psychic abilities to solve puzzles spanning both worlds, uncover deeply disturbing secrets, and survive encounters with The Maw - a monster born from an unspeakable tragedy. The Medium is a third-person psychological horror game that features patented dual-reality gameplay and an original soundtrack.
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Details

Developers
Bloober Team
Publishers
Bloober Team
Genres
Adventure
Themes
Action, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Events
The Game Awards 2020, Tokyo Game Show 2020
Steam
View on Steam

Release dates

  • Jan 28, 2021 (Full Release) (Worldwide) PC (Microsoft Windows), Xbox Series X|S
  • Sep 03, 2021 (Full Release) (Worldwide) PlayStation 5
  • Aug 31, 2023 (Full Release) (Worldwide) Mac

Also available on

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Featured in lists

Short Games by Roach · 42 games · 2
looking for Silent Hill by 100indecisions · 66 games · 0
GOTY 2021 by LarsFrukt · 36 games · 0
Completed by OtakuGamer729 · 150 games · 0

Rating distribution

5 stars
30
4 stars
85
3 stars
149
2 stars
47
1 star
17
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Community All Reviews Statuses

Maiden_in_Black

Status Maiden_in_Black Mar 24, 2026

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I thought I hated fixed cameras but I rather like the way this game uses them, in as much as that while you can't control them directly, they are seldom truly fixed, sometimes slightly spanning along, or following for a while before at last the view switches over to another angle entirely.

I probably still prefer a fully adjustable camera, …

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I thought I hated fixed cameras but I rather like the way this game uses them, in as much as that while you can't control them directly, they are seldom truly fixed, sometimes slightly spanning along, or following for a while before at last the view switches over to another angle entirely.

I probably still prefer a fully adjustable camera, but I can see the use in a game like this, to enhance the area we are walking in in a way that feels utterly cinematic. The picture is only vaguely unrelated, but still. I love the way Bloober Team puts together the areas for its games.

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3 Comment Permalink
Lyrical_Sadness

Status Lyrical_Sadness Mar 22, 2023

Maybe one of my biggest dissapointments in videogames. Boring as hell, terrible narrative and dumb puzzles. The worst part is that this game is sold like a "Horror videogame" so I have to ask WHERE IS THE HORROR IN THIS GAME? IN THE GAMEPLAY? IN THE CHARACTERS? AAAAAAAAAAA.

2 Comment Permalink
BrayanOckel

Status BrayanOckel Nov 8, 2022

  • The story is not well told
  • It's too linear and repetitive
  • Characters walk like older people
  • It's not a horror game. It's a mistery game
  • Same feeling as when I play a Walking Simulator, but in third person
  • It's supposed to have puzzles, but it's really just picking up an item and putting it somewhere
  • Innovative mechanic of playing in …
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  • The story is not well told
  • It's too linear and repetitive
  • Characters walk like older people
  • It's not a horror game. It's a mistery game
  • Same feeling as when I play a Walking Simulator, but in third person
  • It's supposed to have puzzles, but it's really just picking up an item and putting it somewhere
  • Innovative mechanic of playing in two screens at the same time with the same character, but it's not even 2/4 of the game.
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1 Comment Permalink
mrs.dallogay

Status mrs.dallogay Dec 10, 2021

why is the big demon dude SO FAST AT RUNNING ive died in this scripted chase sequence (the first one) like 3 times kajshdasudbufgfjhsdfhd

can I LIVE can I LIVEEEE

other than that, yeah it's a pretty interesting point and click style of adventure game so far

2 Comment Permalink
PangEr97

Status PangEr97 Jun 28, 2021

Finished The Medium yesterday through Game Pass. It's worth playing for sure, as the atmosphere is well done, and the story is interesting enough. I really liked how well done the split worlds were. However, as a horror game, the main thing that is missing is real-time tension.

3 Comment Permalink
PangEr97

Status PangEr97 May 19, 2021

Played for about an hour and a half yesterday. Enjoying it thus far but definitely some criticisms too.

0 Comment Permalink
100indecisions

Status 100indecisions Apr 13, 2021

it turns out The Medium is an incredibly frustrating game because every part of it is pretty and the spirit world is gorgeous so I want to spend a bunch of time there, buuuuut my PC hates it. performance is okay when I’m just in the real world and then every time the screen splits, the graphics quality degrades sharply …

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it turns out The Medium is an incredibly frustrating game because every part of it is pretty and the spirit world is gorgeous so I want to spend a bunch of time there, buuuuut my PC hates it. performance is okay when I’m just in the real world and then every time the screen splits, the graphics quality degrades sharply and performance takes a huge dive, so I’m getting incredible lag with basic things like...walking. or worse, turning in the appropriate direction with fixed camera angles. which makes it A TINY BIT DIFFICULT to do anything time-sensitive, so even though this game is really pretty easy, I’ve already died twice--once from an out-of-body experience that went on too long because I didn’t know what I was looking for and couldn’t move fast enough to look for it, and once because I wasn’t moving fast enough and couldn’t see well enough while getting through a cloud of spirit moths so I burned up most of my energy and didn’t have enough for a second cloud of them. and this was with the graphics turned down and no other programs running! I’m going to be incredibly annoyed if I can’t finish this beautiful, creepy game just because my computer is somehow too wimpy for it.

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1 Comment Permalink
midi

Status midi Feb 25, 2021

Environment art was beautiful, cool camera work, the whole gameplay mechanic of splitting the screen and balancing the world is awesome in concept but the repetitiveness of the puzzles and actions made it fall short. Story made less sense as it went on and the ending was quite disappointing

1 Comment Permalink
BMO

Status BMO Feb 9, 2021

I am saving my complete thoughts on this game for when my partner and I are done, but I see why most reviews for The Medium are middling at best.

2 Comment Permalink
Hades

Status Hades Feb 4, 2021

So the last patch seems to have fixed some of the stutter. But it still had the black artifacts. So I'm back to 100% of 4K at 30 fps. Which is probably not going to be ideal; but I want to see the next patch changes before playing again or changing the settings.

1 Comment Permalink
BMO

Status BMO Feb 3, 2021

My partner and I started this last night. Despite some initially superficial similarities to Silent Hill (fixed camera, atmospheric abandoned locations, duality represented by alternate worlds that allow you to access and unlock different areas within a somewhat labyrinthine space), we both feel like holding this game up to Silent Hill is an unfair comparison. So far I don't think …

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My partner and I started this last night. Despite some initially superficial similarities to Silent Hill (fixed camera, atmospheric abandoned locations, duality represented by alternate worlds that allow you to access and unlock different areas within a somewhat labyrinthine space), we both feel like holding this game up to Silent Hill is an unfair comparison. So far I don't think Bloober has managed to quite grasp what really made Silent Hill as gut wrenching and unsettling as it is. When the other world is prettier and less menacing than the real world, it's hard for the player to every really feel the tension that a game like this should produce.

Lastly, this game suffers from the same major flaw that I ascribed to Ori and the Blind Forest, which is a weird coincidence for another Microsoft exclusive.

Yet there are aspects we like, and hope that those aspects can carry us through to the end.

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3 Comment Permalink
Hades

Status Hades Feb 1, 2021

I started playing through PC Game Pass and I've had nothing but problems. Mostly with some really large black visual artifacts that crop up mostly in cutscenes but also far too often during gameplay. While I definitely haven't had the problems some people have with things like crashing or flashing artifacts that are just a nightmare. It is immersion breaking …

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I started playing through PC Game Pass and I've had nothing but problems. Mostly with some really large black visual artifacts that crop up mostly in cutscenes but also far too often during gameplay. While I definitely haven't had the problems some people have with things like crashing or flashing artifacts that are just a nightmare. It is immersion breaking to say the least. Also, there seems to be some instances where the artifacts I am seeing are cropping up in lengthening shadows which in this game can be VERY distracting.

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1 Comment Permalink
DirtyMidnighter

Status DirtyMidnighter Jan 29, 2021

Started playing this last night and I'm really enjoying it. It feels like the closest thing we've gotten to a spiritual successor to Silent Hill in a very long time, complete with fixed camera angles and everything. The environmental design is also gorgeous and soaked in dread, something that the game's thoroughly eerie setting facilitates wonderfully. The long slow build …

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Started playing this last night and I'm really enjoying it. It feels like the closest thing we've gotten to a spiritual successor to Silent Hill in a very long time, complete with fixed camera angles and everything. The environmental design is also gorgeous and soaked in dread, something that the game's thoroughly eerie setting facilitates wonderfully. The long slow build up to a lone jump scare in the opening hours is incredibly reminiscent of Silent Hill 2's perfect pacing. Where it really shines though, is in the departments of writing and acting. The old survival horror games were masterful in many ways, but voice acting was not one of them. It's nice to get a modern update in that regard. Full review incoming.

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7 Comment Permalink