Bloober Team released their highly anticipated game, The Medium, as an Xbox Series X|S exclusive on Jan. 28, 2021. The game was originally revealed in 2012 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and WiiU, but design challenges forced developers to postpone. With the announcement of the technology coming with the Series X|S by Microsoft, Bloober now realized they would be able to make the game the way they wanted to.
Taking notes from the Resident Evil and Silent Hill franchises, Bloober changed the way they styled the game, using a fixed perspective and third-person view, to make their split-screen style work. The Medium splits the main character, Marianne, between two worlds – the real one and the spirit world. Often, players need to use Marianne’s perspective in the spirit world to open or access doors in the real world, and vice versa. Music composed for the game was likened to that of the music for Chernobyl and Stranger Things, with both the real world and the spirit world being scored separately. The composer was Akira Yamaoka of Silent Hill fame.
The Medium follows Marianne, a psychic medium who can not only communicate with the dead but can walk their realm. She is drawn to an abandoned workers’ resort called Niwa in the Polish wilderness by Thomas, a man who claims he knows what she can do and needs her help. A few years prior, Niwa was shut down by the government after the Niwa Massacre. Once there, Marianne meets Sadness, the spirit of a child who is trapped at Niwa. Sadness leads Marianne to where she needs to go, instructing her to find Richard. Along the way, Marianne learns the secrets of Niwa, and that Thomas was the one who ran the place. She frees souls that were trapped there by the Massacre, soon learning that there’s an evil entity there known as Maw who feeds on the souls of the people who die there.
Marianne eventually discovers that things aren’t as she knew, and learns a family secret that she had forgotten due to trauma. She manages to escape Niwa and its horrors and manages to stop what she believed had already happened. The ending leaves Marianne’s fate unknown, creating room for a sequel.
The game is the first to be released exclusively for Xbox Series X|S. Meaning, while it is playable on PC, it’s not able to be played on any Xbox prior to new-gen technology. The game showcases the power of the new technology and the ability for near realistic environments. While the idea of split-screen is not unique, the way in which Bloober implements it is. Instead of a split-screen couch co-op’ or multiplayer, the game utilizes the split-screen for solo play. The player can see what’s going on in the real world while also seeing what’s going on in the spirit world, allowing for unique puzzles that require both perspectives to solve. However, due to the ‘fixed’ third-person perspective, it can sometimes cause the player to get confused when entering a room. The perspective rotates around Marianne, which means when entering a room, one may grow disorientated and end up walking back out.
Another notable element is brightness. I set it to what I believed was a comfortable level for me. During a chase sequence, however, I had to stop and turn it up, as the room was too dark for me to see the exit, resulting in me failing the chase multiple times. Other than this, the mechanics of the game is fairly straightforward. One method to collect items in the game is akin to Tomb Raider, in which you rotate the item to learn more about it. In the case of The Medium, you rotate it to collect echoes, which give insight into the lives of the dead. The acting in the game is phenomenal, which adds to the story and keeps you interested the entire time.
The Medium is available now for Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC.
Jeri Hensley
Creative Director