![]() There’s none of that in The Medium, leaving you to just run (or walk, as the game frequently forces you to do) around environments until tell-tale button prompts appear. The original Resident Evil and Silent Hill games used their fixed camera angles to draw your attention to items of interest in the environment, and often also made them shimmer to further draw your curiosity towards them. It’s like an extreme version of spot the difference. And when it comes to gameplay, it’s simply not fun traversing an environment while trying to keep an eye on both screens at once to see if there’s anything unique to interact with in either. Many story scenes are presented this way, for example, and it offers nothing other than the knowledge that in the real world Marianne is talking to someone that has no physical presence. Honestly, though, the times in which The Medium presents both worlds to you at once aren’t very enjoyable. Many actions in the “otherworld” require spirit energy collected from wells, a blast of it can be used to power up fuse boxes, and it can also be used to shield the spirit version of Marianne as she passes through swarms of moths. Take too long, however, and your spirit will fade to nothing, resulting in Marianne’s death. It’s in these instances that you can force an “out of body” experience – freeing your spirit from body for a short while to achieve a task – collecting an otherwise unreachable item, for example. That means you can see both the real world and “otherworld” version of the location you’re in. There are times where both worlds will be presented to you at once, split-screen. In the “otherworld”, the door might not exist at all, allowing you to pass freely. In the real world a door might be locked, preventing you from progressing. ![]() ![]() The dual world mechanic feels like it’s largely there simply to drive The Medium‘s puzzles later in the game you gain the ability to switch between both worlds by interacting with mirrors. With a lack of enemies other than a grotesque monster that occasionally appears to chase or stalk you, however, there’s hardly ever a sense of danger. While most of the game takes place with protagonist Marianne going about her business in the real world, sometimes players are thrust into a dark “otherworld”. Silent Hill is obviously an inspiration for The Medium, especially considering its dual world feature. Though some might not be fulfilled by its lacklustre ending. A twisted tale that’s unsettling at times if not a little predictable, it starts slow, but around the mid-point it really captures your attention. Despite that, however, the story of The Medium perhaps remains the highlight of the experience. It makes The Medium‘s story scenes a little sterile. Facial animation is the worst lips move roughly in time with words being spoken, but other than that, there’s little nuance to convey feeling or emotion. While the environments of The Medium generally look great, character animations are not. The move to third-person gameplay, and Bloober Team’s inexperience with the format, impacts other aspects of The Medium, too. When it comes to horror, either an over-the-shoulder or first-person camera is now required to deliver both thrilling gameplay and legitimate scares. You get fed up of the restricted view, and when your movement gets disrupted by a camera angle change it’s simply irritating. And, while at one point I would have loved the idea of horror games going back to their third-person fixed camera angle roots, The Medium proves that it is now simply outdated and clunky. Layers of Fear, Observer, Blair Witch all of the horror games that the studio has developed in recent years have been first-person, immersing players in unsettling worlds that are, at times, truly terrifying. With its third-person viewpoint and fixed camera angles, The Medium is a bit of a departure for Bloober Team.
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