The Medium – A Mind Bending Horror

A Supernatural Story

The game is about a deeply disturbed medium who uses both the real and spirit worlds to deal with the supernatural. Marianne’s adventure leads her to an abandoned hotel resort, which became the stage for an unthinkable tragedy. It is also from this tragedy that a new monster known as the Maw was born. Using her psychic powers and the ability to interact with both the spirit and real world at the same time, she must face the tragedy and discover why the Maw is there in the first place.

Two Realities

The game showcase trailer revealed the game renders both the real and spirit worlds at the same time. This is possible with next-gen hardware and the Xbox Series X’s fast SSD. A normal mundane hallway is creepy in the real world. In the spirit world, it will look hellish and grotesque. A wall that needs to be cut through in a bedroom can be a gross wall of flesh spewing fluids in the other dimension.The possibilities throughout The Medium’s storyare endless as any normal area can become something unimaginable. Think of the Silent Hill series in which characters would witness reality tear itself around them, revealing a rusty and hellish environment. In The Medium, however, Marianne will constantly reside in the spirit realm while continuing the investigation in reality. She’s helping herself continue the journey through both dimensions

Utilizing the Spirit Realm

Another gameplay video showcased a scenario whereby the medium will face a strange puzzle which requires multiple trips through both worlds. The game screen is split, showing Marianne in both dimensions. They move simultaneously in this instance as the real world medium needs to escape the room. During actions, such as investigating a cabinet, the screen will focus on the world being investigated. Using her Medium Sense, she can find areas hidden to the human eye such as a secret passageway that need puzzle-solving to open up.After interacting with a nearby clock, the camera dynamically shows a close up of the clock moving while showing the changes being made in the spirit world. While the clock is seemingly just a mechanism to power up a secret passageway, the spirit dimension shows a vision of past events, revealing a door in the spirit world and a Spirit Well which is used to recharge her psychic abilities.While the physical version of Marianne is stuck, she can use her Out of Body ability to leave her physical self to remain while exploring freely as her spirit self. She then finds the power source to open the entrance in reality using Spirit Blast, which can both power up real world objects and harm enemies. Marianne’s world-altering abilities aren’t fully in her control so players will be forced to either play the reality version of the scenarios or the spirit ones. Either way, the dangers will still be lurking in the shadows as The Maw prevents her from finding the truth.

The Maw

The Maw is a mostly-unseen entity that will serve as the main opposing force drawing Marianne near. Not much is known about the Maw other than it’s born from a great tragedy. In the real world, players will hear the Maw’s haunting whispers, quietly taunting the player. In the spirit world, the Maw will become a visible threat with an unintelligible gurgling language. It’s unclear how Marianne will deal with the Maw, but she does have attacks to fend it off. Unfortunately, no combat has been shown. Whatever the case may be, Bloober Team’s The Medium shows a lot of promise as it makes an innovative use of next-gen hardware while creating a haunting and surreal story. Players will be able to experience both worlds in holiday 2020 on the Xbox Series X and PC.