The Medium (2021)

The Medium might be closer to the adventure/puzzle style side of Silent Hill (think Shattered Memories) but much like that game provides rich atmosphere and story that isn't afraid to tackle complex themes of generational and cultural trauma in an extremely compelling way.

The game has the player controlling Marianne, a spiritual medium who is split between the real world and the spirit realm. After the death of her foster father, she receives a mysterious phone call from someone who knows of her abilities and invites her to an abandoned socialist resort in Poland (the year 1999, post-socialist Poland, around the time Poland joined NATO, NATO bombed Yugoslavia, etc) where the ghosts of the past and the decay of the present come alive. No spoilers on this review, but the player will be jumping into very troubled minds and dark pasts, all while discovering more about herself and her powers.

While I was warned ahead of time about the game's writing, I was genuinely surprised with how complex and layered the perspectives ended up being, letting me sit with some difficult and dark thoughts throughout. Abuse, the cycle of trauma and how a nation's trauma can reflect itself onto its people are all explored here, right on down to the impeccable art design inspired by Zdzisław Beksiński.

As for how the game goes about it, the game is pretty straightforward. There are death states but no survival elements to keep in mind here, just puzzle elements (starts off fairly light but there were some headscratchers near the end, nothing too frustrating) and exploring the resort and what lies within. Some segments involving harrowing chases and use of special spirit powers, as well as a way to recharge those resources. While there's nothing too innovative about the general structure of the game the split world combined with how the player has to utilize Marianne's powers truly stood out. Scare-wise there are some intense scares near the beginning (and again, the chase scenes are HARROWING) but the game is more focused on its dark drama and storytelling.

For atmosphere and presentation the developers wanted to make a Polish-flavored Silent Hill and it shows. Ethereal, haunting, and gorgeously detailed - The Medium flavors its spirit world in a meaningful way instead of simply copying the ideas of Silent Hill's otherworld, and Akira Yamaoka teams up with Arkadiusz Reikowski (and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn) to create intriguing dual scores that separate the physical and spiritual worlds. It's worth listening to outside of the game and McGlynn's vocals shine when they hit.

The Medium starts off tense and mysterious and gives way to a genuinely meaningful and difficult story that I'm glad was told. The horrors of trauma and abuse affect people in different ways and Studio Bloober ambitiously brought that horror to life.

I absolutely loved everything about Bloober Team's The Medium. I had liked Observer quite a bit due to it's fresh take on both cyberpunk and horror and spinning them into a twisted but delightful merry-go-round of door-to-door adventure, and also enjoyed the novelty of Blair Witch (despite it's flaws.)
I don't want to hype it up but at certain moments this game did jump out as Metal Gear type pure vidja cinema Gold to me with cool/beautiful camera angles and well timed/changing music

The Medium goes pretty hard and straight into horror more along the lines of Blair witch with eerie and suspenseful and gloomy forest scenes or abandoned places. It features lots of panoramic angled shot Resident Evil style camer shots as you go from one room to another. It really manages to feel a bit like a horro movie type feel with the story starts out (and progresses at times) into a murder-mystery type story. Dialogue and story in this game are IMO one of the best in these type of horror adventure games (or games in general) so I would say it is a must play if you like this genre and a great place to start if you haven't tried these kinds of games before. 8-hours maybe, perfect length with a story that is actually interesting enough to warrant another play through at some point even as it is told in layers, but better than layers of fear (heh) Well done Bloober, You've managed to dethrone Amnesia 2 in my favorites of horror adventure with such a well crafted tale that examines ghosts and demons linking them in a fairly interesting way!

Pros

1. Atmosphere: really killer with amazing sound design and beautifully disturbing aesthetics that consistently reinforce the oppressive themes of ruin, pain, and trauma littering the narrative and world. This was easily one of the strongest points for this game and the studio deserves a lot of praise for that.

2. Story: generally very compelling. I was often caught up in playing and wanted to keep going to uncover the next clue in piecing together the dark secrets of the Niwa Resort and the past of most of the characters.

3. Characterization: surprisingly solid throughout for a game in which you don't really meet almost anyone in person. I really appreciated Marianne as a protagonist. Though I really wish we knew more about her teenage-adult life, Marianne feels like a real person who's empathetic and at times even charming despite the dark narrative. Sadness is also great and her scenes I consider to be some of the best in the game.

4. Narrative Execution: The voice acting and the motion capture/physical acting are impressive. The voices for all of the main characters are super well done and made the story that much more personal. Information is revealed through a variety of different mediums (pun intended) with written notes, encounters with spirits, cryptic monstrous mutterings, Marianne's internal musings, and dreamlike visions of the past.

Cons

1. Optimization: pretty rough, though it's plenty playable at 30 fps. I'd avoid playing if you don't have a decent build as turning down the graphics otherwise I would imagine would detract from a lot of the beautiful environments that really sell the game.
2. Pacing: while the narrative is quite strong, there were a few points that felt like they went on too long and really belabored the point being made, especially at a couple points in the story when you play as another character for a bit. I sometimes felt like my main obstacle to progressing was waiting on how long it takes to get anywhere with the jog button, most especially in those segments when you play as the other character. Further, the ending levels felt rushed. While I personally liked the game's ending quite well, I do think it will frustrate a number of people a lot.
3. Gameplay: there's simply not much to it, the gameplay is about as simple as can be with most of the game being walking sim or hidden object game with a few moments of tension that fall a little flat given how easy every action sequence is. The other issue is that the environments are sometimes counter-intuitive and make paths hard to even see, which makes the only difficulty to some of the action scenes more the fact that you can't tell where you can go, leading to frustrating deaths when the solution should have been obvious. I can enjoy an interactive story so thus why this con isn't a death knell for my personal enjoyment, but don't go into this game looking for something with a lot of action or intricate stealth sequences at any point.
4. Playtime: The game is very short taking a maximum of maybe 9-10 hours if you go through it very leisurely, but would be closer to 5-6 if you rushed (it took me around 7.5 hours and that was being fairly thorough). While I generally am all for quality over quantity and there's a lot I really liked in this game, this just feels too short for this kind of game especially when compounded with Cons 2 and 3 in that what's there feels inflated and like the game would be even shorter if it were tightened up. Further, there's little to no replay value to mitigate this problem. I think the only reason I'd replay is to experience the story again seeing all the gradual clues and foreshadowing while knowing what happens, but that's at most one extra playthrough and I doubt I will do it considering the slowness of some parts I don't want to jog slowly through again. There are just a few achievements I don't have but there's no chapter select so I doubt I'll replay the whole game to find a couple little things I missed, though I suppose if you weren't thorough and missed a lot, that could be a reason to replay.

Neutral

1. Puzzles: To work well for me, puzzles need to balance between frustratingly difficult and too easy, though I can tolerate them when they are on the frustrating side. These felt shy of that balance and lean toward the too easy range. However, I feel like this is made up for in that several of them are at least pretty interestingly done and feel like they fill out the world more, so thus why I'm ultimately neutral on the puzzles. Considering the gameplay otherwise was lacking, the puzzles were where I found the most gameplay fun.
2. The Spirit World Mechanics: cool and interesting to an extent and I did appreciate them. But they also felt a little unnecessary at times, especially the split screen which is present roughly 1/3 of the game. I really liked it during cutscenes which was a super cool way to illustrate the otherworldly nature of Marianne's encounters, but when I was able to wander around in split screen, I pretty much just stared at one or the other most of the time and feel like there was little point in it being split. It probably would've worked better to just allow you to switch between them, though I suppose that's less unique as a premise. So ultimately it definitely adds to the game, just feels like it falls short of the impact I'd expect from the game's defining mechanic so I'm ambivalent.

Overall I still really enjoyed this title and thus recommend it on balance. It hits a lot of my nostalgia for old school resident evil style eerie dark settings while blending in a much more compelling psychological thriller story with innovative storytelling methods that help even some cliched tropes find new life, not to mention the solid narrative execution. I think the game's plenty worth playing for those reasons. The biggest issue is that you're not getting much bang for your buck at full price given the length and some issues mentioned with some of that playtime. I'm sure it was costly to make and is certainly visually stunning so I always hate saying you shouldn't pay devs as much, but it's just hard to justify the full $50 (I got it with the soundtrack for $50 on sale close to release) for a game that's well under 10 hours with little-to-no replay value. So my recommendation bears the caveat that it's definitely worth playing, but I'd wait for a price drop or sale and would skip this one if you're on a budget and want something that'll last you longer.

TW: Child abuse and trauma explored throughout with at least some visualization. Heavy implications of and reference to sexual abuse involving children, though nothing is on-screen and mostly isn't explicitly described.

Most of what I had read about The Medium didn’t make me excited to play it, and I only decided to do so once I saw it was leaving Game Pass. The game had been touted as this first true ‘next gen console experience' and, to be honest, there was nothing in there that screamed groundbreaking to me. To be sure, the split screen feature is an interesting notion and some might even see it as an impressive technical achievement, but personally it never felt next level. I think this type of marketing was one of the things that hurt The Medium. Because underneath all these ambitious claims is a game that not only keeps its studio identity, it also accomplishes its most relevant goal - storytelling immersion.

It’s undeniable that some things suck as you go through your playthrough. This is an indie game that often feels like a poorly executed indie game: it’s mechanically clunky, linear and restrictive, and for the most part the controls feel somewhat unresponsive. This frustrated me quite a bit in the beginning, but eventually I was able to let go of it and began accepting what the game was trying to do. It doesn’t necessarily ‘care’ about your gameplay experience, it’s simply trying to tell you a story. In this sense, it operates pretty close to a walking sim, which I think is why some people might find it boring: both enemy confrontation and movement are subpar and, at this point, it’s tempting to give up if the story isn’t keeping you hooked. However, The Medium often reaches atmospheric heights that end up delivering an enjoyable experience, at least in my opinion. For two thirds of the game the tone is dark, oppressive, fairly claustrophobic and, in a way, very similar to Blair Witch (another title many people seem to dislike, but that I ended up appreciating), which is why I say Blooper’s identity is kept here. I have both Layers of Fear and Observer on my wish list and I’m looking forward to diving into them as, for all their issues, what this studio does with its games seems to resonate with me.

There are other things I feel the game does well (voice acting is good, and some of its concepts are both intriguing and original, namely a couple of Marianne’s abilities and how both realities are mechanically interconnected) and poorly (the payoff felt slightly underwhelming and non-sensical - the Maw still exists with Lilly, so not only does Marianne killing herself solve nothing, Lilly having to die by her sister’s hand specifically doesn’t make much sense either). But ultimately, its great atmosphere and competent weaving of the ties between the supernatural and human conditions are the things that help The Medium deliver a memorable experience. One that I think you’ll enjoy if a) you embrace the fact that this game is essentially an exercise in narrative, and b) you consequently don’t mind gameplay taking a backseat to a story that often feels more dramatic than scary. 7/10

finished just barely before it got pulled from Xbox Game Pass, because that's how long I put off swapping out my graphics card to see if that would let my PC handle it better. (I never actually did, just limped along with terrible graphics and performance on my current setup because I was getting down to the last second, and then realized it worked just fine if I played it on xCloud with my Xbox One. could've done the former at any point, obviously, and I could've started doing the latter a while ago, so yes, I'm annoyed with myself for waiting until the last minute.)

and ultimately I'm...kind of torn? it's an absolutely beautiful game. the story is decent, although it gets a little hard to follow sometimes. it's more or less what I would expect a modern Silent Hill game to be like, which is mostly fantastic--except when it isn't because the fixed camera or the mildly janky controls keep getting me killed. The puzzles are mostly easy, although sometimes they seem like obvious filler to pad the game length. Mostly it's linear and you don't need an in-game map, except when you really do, and it's annoying to have so many missable collectibles--many of which are pretty important to understanding the story--without a chapter select function or an easy way to keep old saves. Also I had to reload a previous save at one point because the game autosaved in a spot where I literally could not continue without dying, so that was annoying. in some ways I'm more irritated by things like that in this game than I would be in a different one I like less, because it's otherwise really well done.

it's really, really pretty, though, and I love it and it's a new favorite. except for when it isn't.

A seemingly promising adventure game that is unfortunately weighed upon by frequent crashing, an annoying camera, easy linear gameplay, and unoptimized graphics despite looking like they came from a decade ago.

Your character is an esper who can interact with a parallel spirit world, and her actions in either world influence the other. She has the ability to help spirits pass on, which is integral to the story. Everything takes place in a nightmarish, apocalyptic world.

Sadly, despite such an interesting premise, the game feels incomplete, as it features supernatural elements that fail to scare you, many underutilized gameplay mechanics, and a lack of exploration and interaction that could've and should've been capitalized upon. All you do is follow an unambiguous path holding forward for the majority of the game, with most of the side content being inconsequential.

The story was built to be discontinuous and gradually fed to you in the form of flashbacks, but that only served to provide confusion instead. The ending was also unbelievably random and abrupt, which made the game even more lackluster and makes you question whether the game may have been quickly wrapped up for release. Overall, the game feels like an unoriginal mishmash of other horror adventure games.

Interesante concepto el que desarrolla The Medium aunque si soy sincera al 100% debo decir que me esperaba más del juego. Pros:

• Ver dos mundos a la vez. ¡Flipante!
• Trama que mantiene en vilo .
• Muy buenos gráficos
• La BSO
• La tensión que se respira durante todo el juego
• Mi primer juego 100% de la nueva generación Contras:
• Movimientos de la protagonista un poco a trompicones.
• Puzzles de dificultad muy baja
• Juego a mi parecer, muy corto.
• Dificultad baja en general.
• ¿Horror psicológico? Pues vaya...

I think The Medium's less than stellar reception can be partially blamed on two misconceptions:

1. First, this is decidedly NOT a survival horror game. It is a narrative heavy walking-sim with very light stealth and puzzle solving.
2. This is an INDIE game made by a small Polish studio known for other games in the same genre (Layers of Fear/Observer/Blair Witch). Why MS pushed this as the first big XSX exclusive I will NEVER KNOW.

Okay with those outta the way, lemme fangirl!

Graphics? Flawless. Marianne? Badass. Story? I think I might KMS but I get the vibe, I wasn't expecting a HAPPY ending but damn son Bloober team said some people just never gonna get over their trauma and you can't save everyone so shoot your depressed sister in the face or kill yourself!!!!

I really became sold on the game once it delved more into the history of Poland. I enjoyed the way in which the narrative evolved beyond just another exploration of personal trauma and became a broader depiction of collective national horrors. The use of Zdzisław Beksiński's artistic style ties this together in a really wonderful and apt way, as these are the themes of his creations. I believe the game weaves the macro and the micro really well and it has an even larger impact when the current political state of Poland is taken into consideration. I also thought the voice acting was great, I understand why Bloober went with American VAs and it works fine, but I do wish the pandemic hadn't caused them to cut the production of a fully Polish version of the audio.

I enjoyed the puzzles, everything was simple enough to me but I also didn't feel like it required zero critical thinking at all. Gameplay-wise, you're pretty much just walking around and inspecting things to learn more about the world and the characters. The dual-reality was used to good effect in my opinion, some critics' reviews believe more could have been done with it but I've yet to see one that realistically suggests how more could be done.

The monster sequences are scripted, but to me that is a bonus because I don't really enjoy the Amnesia-approach of constantly being hunted. Despite the scripted nature of the encounters, there was still a tension about when it would appear, how I would escape it and what creepy sh!t it was gonna shout at me.

Overall, I would recommend The Medium to anyone who is a fan of this genre. I would not recommend this to RE, SH or survival horror fans, and I wouldn't recommend this to people desperate for an amazing show stopping next-gen hullaballoo because that just isn't what the game is.

What we do get here is an Indie narrative game with an intriguing mystery, a likeable protagonist and a horrific tale of the ties between personal and national trauma. And all of that is wrapped up in some of the best graphics, cinematography and direction I've seen this year.

I played the Medium on Game Pass on the Xbox Series S. There's quite a bit of things that I did enjoy in this game, and a couple things that didn't work.

For instance, the overall art direction and atmosphere, I found to be very well done. The real world is well-made, dark and eerie, but for sure the spirit world is what was really interesting to look at.

Additionally, the story is quite interesting and explores more mature themes. The origins of the monsters for example, and what they stand for is quite disturbing. The game is essentially a mystery game in that most of the game you will be traversing the real and spirit world to unlock rooms, seeking clues and slowly piecing together more things about the story. Some aspects of the story will be obtained through collectibles, so it is possible to miss these, but most of this is for world-building and I do find that to be well done.

The main character is fine, but she frequently has inner monologues and also short remarks about various objects that you find. Some were fine, but there were also some that weren't and could be a bit awkward/annoying. However, the very few other characters in game were quite interesting, particularly when exploring their backstories.

Despite the overall atmosphere, the unfortunate thing is the game itself does not do well in providing real-time tension, in a sense that you rarely feel in danger as you are playing the game. The few survival stealth sections are few and far between, which quickly made me lose much tension, except in those handful of moments.

Ultimately, in the end what kept me finishing the game is the story is interesting enough, and kept me wanting to learn more.

I give it a 3.5/5 but rounding up to 4 since there's no half stars here haha. Can't say I would purchase this on the full-price as I don't think it's something you would replay, but it's worth playing particularly if you have Game Pass.

It's a story-focused game that doesn't have an interesting hook to start with. Things don't get interesting until the halfway point. There's little interactivity in horror games like these, so there wasn't much to keep me entertained in the meantime. I was even falling a sleep during play sessions.

The puzzles in the game are pretty light. There are some puzzles that are more interesting and intricate in the second half of the game, but they are never challenging. The focus is just to uncover the story which leads to disappointing results. The characters of interest in the story all seem to have similar backstories about childhood trauma, and in one case, childhood trauma isn't enough to explain their behavior. The story feels pretty aimless too as Marianne moves from investigating one person who leads to another and another while I have no idea why any of them matter until the second half. It leads to moments where I forget who is who. I honestly forgot what even started this all off, and the ending is pretty bad.

The coolest part of this game is how they present Marianne's medium ability. She can see the spirit world and the living world at the same time. This is presented in the game with a split screen where one half shows the living world and the other half shows the spirit world. The two worlds look different and there are things to interact with that only appear in one of the worlds. This is cool only in presentation though. There's nothing interesting gameplay-wise they do with this. As I mentioned before, the puzzles are pretty light. The game just has me interact with an object in the spirit world to trigger something in the living world and vice versa.

There is a stealth element to this game because there is a monster that occasionally stalks you. This, thankfully, is kept to a minimum. I think there are only about 5 stealth sections in this game. They aren't that bad. They aren't good, but they aren't that bad. Getting caught is a one-hit kill, but the punishment isn't much as the stealth sections are short.

There just isn't much here to make this a game worth playing.

I still remember how I felt watching the trailer the first time. In retrospect, I totally misunderstood it.

After almost an hour, it felt like a walking simulator with puzzles. I stopped playing and went to youtube. I wanted to finish it on youtube, just 5 hours, that's a short game, it would take me longer, and I really don't feel like doing it myself.

I COULDN'T EVEN FINISH WATCHING THE 5 HOURS LONG GAMEPLAY WALKTHROUGH! Not because my attention span became that short. I played Tales of Vesperia for 20+ hours a few weeks ago! (I am not done yet.)

I thought it's gonna be scary, but it was melancholic, boring, sad, disappointing, somewhat disgusting, and disturbing.

I am not saying it is a bad game, just not what I wanted.

Narratively and mechanically stuck between being a late 90s 3D Adventure game (Like Siberia) or a late 90s 3D survival horror game (like Silent Hill). Unfortunately in every way it fails to reach the enjoyment and engagement of even 20+ year old games!

All throughout there are technical issues and graphical errors and glitches and animation crudeness and soft locks that show a lack of polish, money, time, effort, or more likely a combination of it all.

The gameplay feels like those genres I mentioned at the top but there are not enough puzzles to be an adventure game and there is no combat or stakes to make it survival horror. There are a series of different gameplay elements but there are not fun. Bad stealth sequences and the like. The only saving grace is how infrequently they are used.

The story is the strongest part and what held me through to the end even though there were diminishing returns there as well. I am not going to spoil anything, but, the subject matter it chooses to invoke requires more thoughtfulness than I felt the game put into it.

Seeing as it is on Gamepass I would say if you already use the service and if you enjoy horror games at all it is worth a playthrough. To all others I would give a big "buyer beware".