As a medium, Marianne can move through the spirit world, a disturbing purgatory where restless souls wander when they’re unable to cross over to their final rest. The Medium casts you as Marianne, a young Polish woman raised in foster care with no memory of her early childhood. Bloober Team’s aptly titled horror adventure The Medium gives you that chance, and while its vision of the afterlife is so effectively harrowing that you’ll likely be cured of any such real-life ambitions, its confused, disjointed story never manages to live up to those scares. The medium, then-a living soul who can connect with the world of the dead-is among the oldest of human archetypes, and it’s a role that most of us have imagined taking on ourselves, if only idly. The dread of something after death has always lurked at the back of human consciousness, and it’s no stretch to say that nearly everyone has dreamed of one day being able to glimpse what lies beyond the veil. Shakespeare, not surprisingly, had it right. When we have shuffled off this mortal coil The Medium is a tale of psychological horror at its best, told in a manner that could only be accomplished in this format.For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come The game conjures its fear on a psychological level, masterfully combining starkly disturbing imagery with players' own subconscious as they piece together the truth of what really took place at the Niwa massacre. Instead, it digs deep into primal emotions, as Marianne's investigation begins to uncover even more instances of the suffering that the people in Niwa, especially the children, were forced to endure. Despite the obvious supernatural elements, The Medium doesn't constantly rely on cheap jump scares or other shock value.
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It's this mystery that makes The Medium a must-play. Instead, every aspect of the game - from the foreboding atmosphere of the Niwa resort to Marianne's tension-breaking monologues to the scraps of paper and other clues littering the rooms and hallways - exist to flesh out the story and draw the player deeper into the mystery. Failing a task is almost impossible, and at worst requires a restart from a checkpoint that's only a few minutes old. It doesn't require lightning-fast reflexes, and the puzzle elements can usually be solved without taxing your brain too much. The Medium is one of the rare games that puts its focus squarely on its story.
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Marianne says it best when she describes the experience as existing in two worlds, but never truly living in either. It all comes together seamlessly to gives players a tangible connection to Marianne and the curse she's been forced to live with her entire life. From a gameplay perspective, it pushes the player to pay extra attention to the environments, examining and manipulating objects in one world so that the player can advance further in the other. During cinematics, there's something uniquely eerie about watching Marianne interacting with the spirit Sadness in her world while also seeing the same interactions in the "real" world. It's an impressive feat of both storytelling and gameplay. At first glance, The Medium's dual-world gameplay seems like that, but it quickly becomes clear that watching events unfold simultaneously in both the material and the spirit worlds is so much more than some cheap trick.
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Show moreĪ lot of games try to stand apart from the rest, thanks to some quirky gimmick that, while different, doesn't really add much to the experience. and they are determined to keep their secrets, even beyond the grave. But she soon discovers that there are other forces able to cross between two worlds. Using her skills to traverse the spiritual plane, Marianne is determined to find the truth of what happened at Niwa and what role it may have played in her life. After receiving a phone call from a stranger pleading for help and offering the answers she has long sought, Marianne travels to Niwa, an abandoned hotel resort and the site of a massacre that cost the lives of countless people. Since childhood, she has been haunted by visions of a young girl's murder, and left to wonder what it means and how it might tie into her own past. Marianne has always tried to use her abilities - both a gift and a curse - to help lost souls find their peace and move on, which is what Marianne has been unable to find for herself. Marianne was an orphan, the survivor of a terrible accident that also granted her the unique ability to exist and interact in the real world and the spirit world simultaneously. THE MEDIUM is a supernatural mystery filled with secrets and tragedies that span both the world of the living and the spirit world that lies just beyond the veil.