#THE MEDIUM XBOX ONE SERIES#

I’ve had three hard locks, and the framerate can be somewhat unstable during scene transitions.

#THE MEDIUM XBOX ONE SERIES#

I did run into a few technical problems on Xbox Series X. Lights and shadows flicker and play with your mind throughout the game, always making you think there are more dangers around every corner…and sometimes there are. Shadows are incredibly realistic, which adds even more creepy moments when an elongated claw reaches out to grasp something nearby, only to make you laugh when you realize that it’s your hand and your mind is just playing tricks on you. Visually speaking, The Medium looks fantastic on Xbox Series X and PC, with both sporting some impressive raytracing. Only once did everyone watching me play jerk in their seat, though everyone winced when I “opened” objects in the spirit world. I do have to say that, while the tension is thick throughout, the game doesn’t rely on jump scares to drive the horror. It shows as the game ratchets the tension through unsettling music just as much as it does with punctuated silence.

Beyond voice work, the Bloober team brought in power duo Akira Yamaoka and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn - two of the principals behind the soundtrack to Silent Hill. The voice work in The Medium is top notch, with Troy Baker breathing (rasping?) a creepy amount of life into the main antagonist known only as “The Maw.” I can’t find any info on the protagonist, but the voice actress does a stellar job as well. Spending too far away from her physical form causes Marianne to begin to deteriorate, blowing bits away from her like ashes. Marianne can also have an “out of body experience” by parking her physical body and walking around untethered in the spirit world allowing you to stretch past physical barriers, at least for a limited time. That isn’t to say the answer is always obvious, but the game does manage to stick to logical conclusions instead of pixel hunting. In practice, I was only really stumped with one puzzle in The Medium - a date where my math failed me. Objects remain rooted in the world they are found, but the interactions between them provide numerous opportunities for dual-world puzzles. In the spirit world, Marianne is able to unleash a spirit blast to fend off spirits or trigger events that can impact the real world. Barriers in the real world can prevent passage in the spirit world.

What’s different this time, however, is that it’s happening simultaneously.Īt various parts of the game, Marianne’s spirit is split between the real world and the spirit world, represented by a split screen presentation. At Niwa, she begins to unravel the mysteries of this place and starts tapping into her ability to visit the spirit world. Marianne’s journey into the corners of the Spirit World are reminiscent of the dark spaces in those styles of games. It’s immediately apparent that Bloober Team are big fans of games like Silent Hill and Amnesia. Summoning her to an abandoned resort named Niwa (a real-world location, if you are inclined to pay a visit), she finds more than she bargained for. While helping prepare a friend’s body for burial, she receives a mysterious phone call. She also knows, as Herman Melville once said, that “beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.” She not only guides these wayward souls, but also solves whatever horrors have trapped them there so that they might transition to a peaceful end.

She’s a medium, able to guide the souls of the dead to the great beyond. Marianne knows what lurks just underneath the surface of our world.

The medium xbox one