Version tested: Xbox Series X
Successfully settling into the increasingly complicated world of survival horror is a very complex mission.
In recent years, many have tried to replicate the success of pearls such as Silent Hill and Fatal Frame, but often ending up ruinously failing. After all, a good horror title to really break into the hearts of the players needs a truly authentic track, which somehow manages to satisfy the thirst of the most demanding players.
Why, and it is no mystery, fans of the genre are more and more numerous but the number of themed titles is increasingly small. For this reason, the announcement of The Medium immediately launched many gamers into raptures. The work of Bloober Team, which in recent years has already shown great affinity with the genre, arrived on the market with great ambitions. The authors of Layers of Fear and Observer they tried again, bringing to the screen a psychological horror with extremely fascinating connotations.
The protagonist's “mental” fight is a bit the common thread of the whole story, a story that knows how to attack the player's mind with the right amount of terror and anguish. Since these are two fundamental elements for the success of such a product, the good conditions around the production seem to have all the credentials to be satisfied.
But, on balance, how does the first true Xbox exclusive of this next-gen, which started only a few months ago, behave? The answer is not simple. The Medium is an incredibly controversial, complex product, as is the story it tells and the way it tells it.
At the end of the carousel, however, we are convinced that it will be able to make the joy of those who grew up on bread and Silent Hill, although some steps have shown all the limitations of a software house that still has a lot to prove.
The Medium: a mature story full of interesting ideas
The narrative incipit of The Medium, to be honest, at first does not seem the most original. The protagonist, Marianne, carries with her a burden as heavy as it is important. From a young age (even from the age of three) she can see the spirits of the dead and above all can communicate with them.
To be exact, Marianne is able to cross the world of the "living" to enter a spiritistic and otherworldly reality. Consequently, its existence was not the simplest.
To her "rescue", when she was still only a child, came Jack, her adoptive father, an incredibly important figure in the growth of our alter ego.
Jack's death, in fact the event with which the adventure begins, represents the starting point of the whole adventure. The loss of her father pushes the girl to return to the place where she grew up, to give a last farewell to the one who helped her in a life that has so far not been easy at all.
On the same day, however, Marianne's life is once again ready to be turned upside down by events. A mysterious figure, named Thomas, comes into contact with the protagonist, proving that he has too much information about her.
The young woman is in fact tormented by a recurring nightmare in which she witnesses the murder of a young woman by an unknown individual. Thomas seems to have (or at least supports it) the answers the protagonist has been looking for for a lifetime. To find them, you need to go to the Niwa resort, a place that is not entirely random.
The hotel was in fact the scene of brutal murders and mysterious disappearances, and that's where our adventure starts. Without shining in a striking way for originality, the story of The Medium turns out to be adult, well written and full of twists.
And, trust me, it's worth living for all the roughly ten hours of gameplay required to complete the adventure.
The journey into the mind of Marianne, a well written and excellently carried out character, is definitely worth the price of the ticket. Impersonating such a tormented protagonist is certainly one more, and we are happy with his evolution. Bloober Team has been able, from this point of view, to greatly exceed the expectations of the eve, offering players a never banal protagonist.
The Medium: a game for everyone?
It is useless to go around it: the real distinctive feature of the production is certainly that linked to playing simultaneously on two separate lines. Exploring both the real and the spirit world simultaneously is a treat of the highest level. The two worlds, however different and separate, are inextricably linked to each other and the gaming experience is strongly influenced by this aspect.
The two worlds are in fact interconnected from a playful point of view and their continuous influence represents a fundamental aspect of the play experience. To overcome the puzzles, which is a bit like the main aspect of The Medium, it is necessary to explore both dimensions. The two realities live on "blocks" that can only be overcome through "collaboration", that is, the finding and solving of puzzles that require full knowledge of both. To this is added, in addition to the release of a sort of power that is activated in the Underworld, also a third dimension, the extracorporeal one.
To overcome some sections it is in fact necessary, through the continuous pressure of the B key, to leave your body, and let the spirit of Marianne circumnavigate the threatening spirit world. Although at first it is a "out of phase" element, in reality the latter is very well balanced. In spirit form, Marianne is able to overcome practically every single obstacle, of course, but she exposes herself to an even more threatening enemy: time. In fact, Marianne cannot stay away from her body for too long. The penalty for spending too much time is obviously the end of the journey, a journey more threatening than one might imagine.
That's right, threatening. And it is no coincidence that we have used this term. The spirit world is not only populated by innocent and kindhearted spirits. In the Underworld lives a creature known as the "Maw", a being who hunts down our protagonist with an insistence typical of good Nemesis.
Escaping the creature showcases another important trait of the production: the absence of combat. Forget, therefore, firefights and various brawls: in The Medium the key to everything is ingenuity.
Cunning and the ability to read situations are essential to turn everything in your favor and not just in battle. The work of Bloober Team, moreover, is mainly based on solving environmental puzzles and puzzles. In most cases these are fairly simple to complete but push the player to keep the attention bar high.
The devil, moreover, always hides in the details, and it is the latter that are decisive on more than one occasion. To find the right element it is therefore necessary to draw on all the skills of the protagonist, including her ability to cross the dimensional planes.
Too bad, however, that this potentially impressive mechanic actually turns out to be too sketchy and insipid, although it can certainly be very interesting.
We had the perennial feeling that the "dualism" of the game has also extended to its fruition. Any good idea, however valid, seems to get lost a bit in itself, even though everything works overall.
Lights and shadows of a technical and artistic sector with a dual nature
Even from an exquisitely technical and artistic point of view, Bloober Team's most ambitious work is accompanied by the same dual nature from which the entire production is pervaded.
The concept of "dualism" extends, if we involuntarily want, also to the aesthetic sector, characterized precisely by an overall fluctuating quality. If on the strictly aesthetic front The Medium fully hits the mission, managing to be memorable and incredibly inspired, the same cannot be said of the technical sector. The town of Niwa is still splendid, and recalls in all respects that anguish and that ghostly aura of titles like Silent Hill, a product from which the title draws a lot both in structure and in thematic concepts. Beautiful to look at and splendid to “live”, in short, as much as the ghostly world, the true pearl of production.
The alternative reality into which the protagonist falls, inspired by the work of the painter Zdvislaw Bekinski, is something amazing to see and that alone can be worth the price of the ticket. Grotesque, distressing, terrifying and at the same time silent and melancholy, it manages, thanks to the care with which it has been revived, to leave an important mark in the minds and hearts of the players. This is due to the skill of the team in giving that feeling of continuity (necessary) between the two worlds, in which it is almost necessary to stop and notice all those small differences.
All this is embellished by an excellent technical construction, in which elements such as lighting and shadow management can be praised, well supported by a discreet use of Ray tracing. The real sin is related to the polygonal size. If on the whole everything is recreated ad hoc, it is precisely the "shapes" given to the bodies, and in particular to the faces of the characters, that seem to have been stuck in the past.
We do not feel certain to dwell too much on this aspect, of course, but perhaps we would have expected a little more from this point of view. In some moments we have also witnessed frame drops and various technical problems (washed out textures, late uploads, etc.) that we would have gladly done without.
Nothing to say, however, about the sound sector. The soundtrack accompanying Marianne's journey is simply gorgeous and perfectly fitting. It also helps to immerse yourself even more in the atmosphere of the game. Returning to the subject of immersion, it is only right to advise you to play with headphones. The voices, sounds and background noises are a fundamental trait of The Medium, and amplify even more that “sensorial” nature inherent in the DNA of the title itself.
Final comment
The Medium is a great game, unable to break through the wall of the masterpiece but still incredibly good.
In a period so orphaned by such productions, the little pearl of Bloober Team manages to offer the player a story of the highest level, well written and well told, accompanied by an imaginary as fascinating as it is disturbing.
The real problem with The Medium lies in the gameplay. The good ideas of the eve are in fact too sketchy, ending up, in the long run, repetitive and badly managed. Added to this is also a two-sided technical / graphic look, which in some moments left us dumbfounded considering also the reference console of the production itself.
Overall, the latest work by Bloober Team is still a work with a great identity, which is definitely worth living in its entirety, but turning a blind eye to the aforementioned limits.
