The Medium Review — The Digital Bench

Let’s set an expectation here: The Medium is not Silent Hill.

This may seem like a slight against the game but it shouldn’t be taken as such. It’s important to make that distinction because with that comparison comes a very specific set of expectations and I’m going to talk a lot about expectations. It’s important that we know and understand why this game is different and how it ultimately benefits from those differences.

You might be like me, a person holding on to the last bit of hope that a Silent Hill sequel or some equivalent will come along to take its place as the de-facto psychological horror experience. The visual aesthetic of The Medium, a game that focuses on the parallels between the physical world and a hellish afterlife existence, might remind you of a familiar rust and blood-covered town but swapped out for bone and ash instead.

At a glance it’s hard to deny the similarities. I’ve already made mention of the split dimensions. The inclusion of musical work from Akira Yamaoka might even be a bit on the nose. Aesthetic similarities aside, the game does set out on its own path. You assume the role of Marianne, a medium who has the ability to shift into the spirit realm to help lay souls to rest. After receiving a phone call from a stranger offering to explain the source of her powers, she travels to an abandoned resort in Niwa to investigate further.

Giving Marianne’s character the agency to travel back and forth between the physical and spirit realms at will not only avoids the trappings of a traditional Silent Hill-style story, it also ties in with one of the game’s core mechanics. Throughout the game, the player comes across different puzzles while controlling Marianne in both realms. She’s even able to harness her powers to have out-of-body experiences, affecting things in the spirit realm that cause changes in the real world. While I never found the puzzles to be especially difficult, that concept is something that I’d like to see explored a bit more in the future.

Modern third-person horror games also carry a specific set of expectations when it comes to things like movement, exploration, and combat. Almost universally in these games, your character is somehow capable of wielding weaponry that can dispatch whatever comes after you, whether it be a zombie or a literal god.

You will not find any combat in The Medium. This might seem counterintuitive but I think it’s a smart design choice that really enhances other aspects of the game. Having combat in horror games can have the unintended effect of demystifying their creatures and abominations. It’s through repeated combat that you start to look at them less as horrific beings and more like fleshy obstacles preventing you from getting from point A to point B. Depending on the series, I feel less scared by the creature itself and more scared of the fact that I just don’t have enough ammo at the moment. You don’t need combat if it doesn’t add anything and it wouldn’t have added much to this game.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t any encounters in The Medium; there are several throughout as you make your way deeper into the game and you can still die during these sequences. By not having regular combat, those encounters become infinitely more stressful and terrifying. During your first run-in with a creature known only as The Maw, you spend a lot of that section running away from it, barely getting a look at it and only hearing it taunt you as it chases you down a winding hallway. It’s even more unnerving if you experience this section with headphones on, as you hear the deep thuds of its running footsteps picking up speed behind you. That was an effective way of terrifying me without having to fire a single bullet.

For the design choices I’ve come to appreciate, there are also a fair amount that can be frustrating. Let’s talk about movement. With the lack of combat, there may not be a need to have a character that sprints 100% of the time. That becomes a problem for me, as I’m conditioned to never not be running in a horror game. There is a run button in this game but it has you moving at the pace of a brisk powerwalk. It’s especially frustrating when during certain set-piece sequences, Marianne appears to have the ability to haul ass when needed.

This may be partially influenced by lack of exploration in game. It’s incredibly difficult to get sidetracked when playing because everything is laid out in a straightforward path. There are no sprawling spaces to explore. Despite being primarily set in an abandoned resort hotel, there’s really aren’t any rooms to get lost in. There may be an occasional side room to duck into to find an heirloom that expands upon different plot threads but it’s never too far off the main path. It’s great for people like me who prefer a more streamlined and tightly constructed experience. Others who prefer a more open environment experience may feel too restricted.

Since it isn’t an open world game, I assumed that there would be a decrease in the amount of jank to be found. The Medium doesn’t get away jank-free but it doesn’t really break the experience either. The most noticeable issue I came across was repeated pop-in as well as texture smoothing when loading into a cut-scene. It’s nothing game or immersion-breaking but you can’t miss it because it’s in so many scenes. There are also some weird audio quality issues, with the biggest offender coming from a pair of bolt cutters that sound much more like nail clippers.

Should you buy it, wait for a sale, or skip it?

Anyone who is remotely interested in horror games should definitely find a way to check out The Medium, especially if you can grab it on sale. If you have Game Pass, there’s no reason not to give it a shot. The simultaneous dual-world gameplay brings a unique twist on puzzle solving and exploration. It also manages to create a tension that I haven’t felt since the earlier Silent Hill games. It’s definitely rough around the edges, but Bloober Team crafted an interesting enough universe to where I’d like to see where it goes.