Acclaimed horror-game developer Bloober Team’s latest endeavor, The Medium, focuses on a psychic medium named Marianne who can see both the spiritual world and the physical world, sometimes in tandem. Bloober Team announced The Medium in 2012, but made little mention of it since. Now, after some release delays, it will be an Xbox exclusive title with a dual release for PC. Game Rant got to see some of The Medium in action, and it’s not too soon to say that players definitely have something to be excited about.
It’s easy to see how The Medium draws inspiration from past cult-classic horror games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil, especially because its soundtrack was created with Akira Yamaoka, a composer who is most known for his work on Silent Hill. The fixed camera angles that players must navigate are also very reminiscent of early Resident Evil games, but past horror influences aren’t the only thing players have to look forward to, though.
The Eerie Scenery
Bloober Team is a Polish company that aims to bring Polish architecture and culture to the mainstream, which is part of the reason it chose Zdzislaw Beksinski as the inspiration for the design of the spirit world. Besides being a Polish artist, Beksinski’s work ultimately fit the exact atmosphere the developer was trying to capture for the spirit realm. Beksinski’s most notable works were in the style of dystopian surrealism, which shine through in The Medium’s spirit design.
There’s not one particular piece that can be cited as an inspiration for the spirit area of The Medium. This is partly because Beksinski’s work functions as a whole, but mainly because Beksinski never named any of his pieces. They simply exist for audiences to look at and interpret on their own. Bloober Team captured the rust, almost blood-like colors found throughout Beksinski’s work to create a spirit world that is both foreboding and whimsical at the same time.
The real world setting of the Niwa Hotel is also dilapidated and daunting, too. To navigate, whether it be between levels of the hotel or between the real and spirit world, players will have to solve puzzles to help them reach their destination. The game preview showed an instance where a spirit named Sadness ran up the stairs in the spirit world, but that staircase was broken in the real world. Players must explore the surrounding area to find an alternate route up the stairs, but the atmosphere also makes it feel like something might be lurking around every corner.
The Power of Spirit
Marianne does not have access to weapons—at least not in a traditional sense. There are no guns or blunt instruments found in the game, but Marianne has the ability to harness her psychic powers to her advantage. The gameplay demo, for example, showed Marianne being able to project an energy shield around her to get rid of some pesky moths in a closed space. When questioned about why Marianne’s spirit world counterpart has white hair, Wojciech Piejko and Jacek Zieba, the lead game designer and producer of The Medium, respectively, remarked that this decision was made to draw the player’s eye and make sure they see the difference between real-world Marianne and spirit-world Marianne.
She can’t use these powers out of nowhere, though, as players must find spirit wells to syphon and “charge” Marianne’s abilities. Sometimes, like in the gameplay demo when real-world Marianne is stuck in an elevator, she must have an “Out of Body Experience” to figure out how to get the elevator moving again. Players see both iterations of Marianne on screen, but real-world Marianne goes dark as her out-of-body experience puts her solely in the position of her spirit-world counterpart. She has to find a spirit well, syphon the energy it provides, and get back to her body before her image dissipates completely.
Once she’s harvested the energy, players are able to stop Marianne’s out-of-body experience and it will snap her, and players, back to reality as she “wakes.” There doesn’t seem to be a cooldown time for this ability from what we saw, so players can then immediately go out-of-body again to complete the puzzle and use the energy to jumpstart the elevator. It may have been more challenging to make players unable to jump in- and out-of-body so easily, but it’s too soon to say how much this specific mechanic will affect the overall difficulty of The Medium.
The Air of Mystery
Previously, what’s been known about The Medium is that Marianne is haunted by visions of a child’s murder, which brings her to the Niwa Hotel, and the preview didn't add much more to that. However, that’s not a bad thing. Horror games should still feature elements of surprise and intrigue before release—something The Medium has plenty of.
What players know is the main antagonist, or so it seems, is named “The Maw” and voiced by The Last of Us’ Troy Baker. The Maw is genderless, more metaphysical than physical, but still terrifying for players to encounter—especially when it follows Marianne into the real world where it is invisible. Marianne’s only indicator it’s near is when her flashlight flickers. But, the Maw isn’t the only spirit Marianne encounters either, as the gameplay preview showed Marianne interacting with the aforementioned Sadness—the spirit of a little girl who seems to help Marianne explore the Niwa Hotel.
What’s most intriguing about The Medium, though, is its dedication to showcasing a “morally ambiguous story.” The biggest draw of the game is how perspective changes perception, so the more players explore and see, the more understanding they have about the situation. The game is founded on the idea “that there are no simple, objective truths,” so Marianne is simply the observer and players make the final judgements about what’s discovered throughout the game.
Bloober Team is the developer behind well-known horror hits like Layers of Fear, Blair Witch, and The Observer, with The Medium set up to be its next big hit. Players have to wait just a little longer to explore the spirit world and real world of The Medium, but if the actual gameplay is anything like the preview, players will be in for a frightening, everything-is-not-as-it-seems experience.
The Medium releases on January 28 for Xbox Series X/S and PC.