The Medium from Bloober Team is their next big push for an astonishing horror title, that at times, delivers, but also struggles to some interesting design decisions. Here’s our thoughts on The Medium for Xbox Series S|X.
Pros:
+ Absolutely beautiful graphics that stand out among modern games
+Unique puzzles that require players to use both versions of Marianne
+Each setting is as hauntingly beautiful as the other
+A truly heart-wrenching and well-told story
Cons:
-Split-screen adventuring detracts from the level of immersion the game offers
-Running sequences can be rather frustrating to complete
In the opening moments of Bloober Team’s latest psychological horror title, you’ve come to learn that something unsettling is going to happen rather quickly, and Marianne is the centerpiece to the overall experience. The opening moments are just what you would expect from a title called The Medium.
The opening moments open up rather quickly to set up the entire experience: Your foster father Jack, a man whom you feel you should know rather well, comes into the funeral home where Marianne works. Jack’s spirit quickly manifests, forcing Marianne’s abilities as a medium to appear where she speaks with him, learning what has led to his death.
To keep any potential spoilers short, we won’t set up the entire experience, but note that the opening moments are as touching as it gets before it escalates rather quickly, leaving Marianne in a situation where she must learn the truth, leading her to head to the Niwa Worker’s Resort just outside of Krakow, Poland, and discover the truth about what happened to her father and his acquaintance Thomas.
Seeing the world through the eyes of The Medium
When you play through The Medium, you’ll be presented a game in several different aspects. One of them, you’ll have a fairly straightforward adventure game experience where you explore environments as Marianne on the living plane while her other side explores a very different world through the spirit world.
In order to complete objectives, Marianne has to master her abilities as a medium, learning to channel herself in one world to open doors, find hidden keys, uncover residue left behind by past events that tell a story of their own, but also add weight into the history of the world around her. You’ll find that your experience, however, can be quite disorienting as you explore the world around you.
There are moments where the game will become hard to navigate as we learned using a 65’’ Sharp 4K TV: The screen will split in half either top and bottom or side-to-side. While the story itself does give a unique view of Marianne’s view of the world, it also takes away from the level of immersion that players might have. Oftentimes, you’ll find yourself disoriented when looking for clues, having to hold the “B” button in order to prioritize the Spirit World over that of the living for a limited time.
Other times, you’ll find that the screen will simply go whole, allowing you to use specific items to maneuver back and forth without any form of time constraints. This is where puzzles can become a bit harder to complete as you’ll continually navigate back and forth using mirrors in order to transition between the two.
Again, while the idea behind the presentation is unique, but, it can be quite disorienting and hard to navigate due to the limited field of vision and inability to REALLY zoom in on the screen itself.
Puzzles are quite a joy and they can be rather challenging
The central hook of the game is Marianne’s ability to manifest herself in both the spiritual and physical worlds. While they won’t look the same, their general layout is, but their presence in the spiritual world could be quite unnerving to some. You’ll find, at times, specters from the past have left their residual imprint on the world around them.
Unlike the spirit world, the physical world version of Niwa is a lived-in experience, one where papers are tossed about, people’s items can be found in their rooms, and the building itself almost feels left untouched by time itself. The mood itself is drab, but at the same time, somehow nostalgic due to the very relic of the past itself actually is.
However, in the spirit world, you’ll find it to be quite different in how the world is presented. The spirit world is darker, with a more macabre touch to it. Areas are outlined in bone, sinew, rot, and deterioration to it. You’ll find that it’s always eerie, left with a burnt-like atmosphere to it where it seems that the sun never reaches.
It’s a presentation that works rather well for the game and truly brings the overall experience to life, but, can also detract from it due to, again, the split-screen design that ultimately detracts from the ability to truly appreciate Bloober Teams’ artistic presentation.
There is a meaning behind the split-screen we’ve argued against
While you may play the game and not have an issue with the gameplay element itself, there are a few good reasons for it, but also a few others why it was done better in different parts of the game. At times, you’ll find that it’s easier to shift the camera to Marianne in the living world, minimizing what you see in the spirit world itself (this is very minimal and isn’t actually a “camera focus”).
In one world, she will see the world as it is, using her ability to detect “psychic” responses from the spirit world by picking up puzzle-based items, finding the story elements needed to further progression. It’s here that the central hook for the experience does come to life. Marianne has to use both of her forms to navigate the world around her, sometimes fixing blockages or broken parts by repairing them in the spirit world, and then proceeding from there. There are some puzzles, however, that take full advantage of the fullscreen moments where Marianne will fully explore an area in her spirit form.
You will find that during some of these sequences, the puzzles are fully focused on Marianne’s psychic abilities, allowing her to open and close previously sealed doorways, exposing hidden items, or finding relics that can influence her overall experience. Channeling these objects can also benefit the game’s overall experience that The Medium has to offer. There is a catch to this statement though.
Running sequences can be a bit tough to complete
If you’ve watched the trailers, then you know Marianne has her work cut out for her. She’s going to have to work hard to get through the story and find the truth about what happened to Thomas as she explores the Sinwa Resort.
When there, she learns that she’s not alone in the spirit world or even that of the physical world itself. She is being hunted by an entity only known as “The Maw”, a horrific creature that is like a moth to the flame, constantly chasing her when it can. While Troy Baker does deliver a terrifying performance, probably the creepiest one of his career so far, The Maw is a powerful being, one that will do whatever it takes to stop Marianne from completing her objective.
In order to survive, she must run from him as quickly as possible, and she’s facing impossible odds as The Maw chases her down, pummeling his way through walls, fixtures, and even doors. Unfortunately, as he does, you’ll find that no real path is presented in several of these cases, making the chance of survival based on trial and error.
Trust us when we say this: Dustin is a survival-horror veteran who struggled countless times with this very sequence. It wasn’t easy for him nor was it something he figured out until it came down to almost perfect timing. It was truly a challenge for us both and we actually had to take a break due to that very sequence.
However, The Medium doesn’t let you forget where it stands, why things are as rough as they can be through every inch of possible narrative design whether through the overall world design, spoken dialogue, or journal log entries you will find. Marianne always seems to be tied deeply into the character Sadness, one that reflects something of importance to what will unfold.
The entire game seems to stick true to one quote we’ve yet to forget: “This thing isn’t a razor… It’s guilt. Same. Regret,” when she first discovered a razor blade in the spirit world in which she uses to cut open walls of flesh. This could be the same for the chase sequences, which represent an onset of anxiety or some form of metaphor we don’t quite comprehend.
The Medium does have a few small bugs and performance hiccups we need to discuss
Now, when we look at The Medium, we know there have been some patches delivered, however, we also noticed that despite those patches, we’ve had a few interesting bugs occur. Believe it or not: None of them are actually gameplay bugs, which is quite surprising.
Rather, our bugs came in the same graphical anomalies where black squares would pop up where The Maw’s head should be or on Marianne’s face is. Sometimes causing the texture to completely be replaced. This wasn’t actually uncommon in cutscenes, despite it all being in-game rendering.
However, it was also accompanied by some minor performance hitches along the way where we would notice that, even on an Xbox Series X, that performance would take a minor drag. It cut us off guard as we have been playing several games that have made the jump into next-gen upgrades ranging from Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla to free-to-play weeks of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Fortnite with little to no issue.
The performance hiccups, however, aren’t all that frequent, but they do tend to happen when too much is going on – on-screen. This usually has to do with the chase scenes with The Maw or various other moments of the story as it plays out, but we do expect this to get ironed out over time.
The Medium does have a few small bugs and performance hiccups we need to discuss
Now, when we look at The Medium, we know there have been some patches delivered, however, we also noticed that despite those patches, we’ve had a few interesting bugs occur. Believe it or not: None of them are actually gameplay bugs, which is quite surprising.
Rather, our bugs came in the same graphical anomalies where black squares would pop up where The Maw’s head should be or on Marianne’s face is. Sometimes causing the texture to completely be replaced. This wasn’t actually uncommon in cutscenes, despite it all being in-game rendering.
However, it was also accompanied by some minor performance hitches along the way where we would notice that, even on an Xbox Series X, that performance would take a minor drag. It cut us off guard as we have been playing several games that have made the jump into next-gen upgrades ranging from Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla to free-to-play weeks of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Fortnite with little to no issue.
The performance hiccups, however, aren’t all that frequent, but they do tend to happen when too much is going on – on-screen. This usually has to do with the chase scenes with The Maw or various other moments of the story as it plays out, but we do expect this to get ironed out over time.
The Conclusion
The Medium is a strong contender in the current field of horror-survival games in that it offers beautiful graphics, haunting music, and a story that is unexpected to some as well as possibly controversial to others due to how sensitive the nature of some of the topics are.
The Medium
Platforms: PC and Xbox Series X|S
Versions Reviewed: Xbox Series X
Developer: Bloober Team
Publisher: Bloober Team
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $49.99
While the small emotional ties to Sadness and Marianne only grow more complex towards the end, and the small performance hiccups and graphical bugs occur from time to time, The Medium is a strong title that – to some – will ultimately be held back due to awkward camera angles and the split duality emphasized by the use of split-screen gameplay to represent both the spirit world and that of the physical world.
Our review is based upon a retail version of the game provided to us by the publisher for the review. For information about our ethics policy please click here.
About the Writer(s):
About the Writer:
David Murphy is B.A.T.G.R.’s behind-the-scenes man who helps get things up and going as well as keeping things in order. Don’t be surprised to know that the old man contributes rather heavily to editing, news, and information he digs up so that editorials, as well as articles, are done properly. He also likes Fallout… A lot. We’re not sure he’s not secretly the Vault Boy in disguise.
Dustin is our native video game reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the borders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. You can find him over on Twitter or Facebook today.