Revealed during Microsoft’s May Xbox Series X showcase and teased again during Microsoft’s July presentation, this horror game utilizes next-gen technology in an interesting and unique way: displaying two worlds at once.
Here’s everything we know about Bloober Team’s upcoming psychological horror, The Medium:
Release Date
After an initial release date of December 10th, 2020 being missed, The Medium is now set to be released on January 28th, 2021.
Trailer
Platforms
Unlike most other launch titles for the Xbox Serie X/S, The Medium will not receive an Xbox One version and will be released only on the Xbox Series X/S and Microsoft Windows.
The reason for this is due to hardware limitations on current-gen consoles.
“We spent a lot of years thinking about this game and how can fulfill our dream about it, but we had a problem with the platform,” Producer Jacek Zieba explained during an interview with Microsoft in May 2020.
“Then Xbox Series X came up and we thought ‘Yeah, this is the perfect match for us’ and a lot of doors were open for use to be creative and do the game as we wanted.” Basically, keeping the two worlds of The Medium running simultaneously with a stable frame rate and minimal loading would be extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, on current-gen hardware.
PS5 and Google Stadia versions, don’t appear to be in the cards for the developer right now but might be possible in the future.
Gameplay
A four-minute uncut gameplay video for The Medium was released on July 24, a day after a gameplay trailer appeared during the Xbox Games Showcase. The video dives into the “dual-reality” concept that is at the core of The Medium, highlighting how it’s used to solve puzzles. This dual worlds gimmick is really something that can only really be done on next-generation consoles due to the high spec hardware, so it’s definitely worth checking out to see the power of the Xbox Series X.
Also read; Far Cry 6: Release Date, Plot, Cast Details!
Much of the game is spent exploring and solving puzzles, in a fashion similar to Silent Hill or Resident Evil, the dual reality gimmick should set up some mind-bending scenarios that players will have to work their way through. In the video, we see Marianne mess with a clock in the real world to speed up time within the Spirit World, opening a path that allows Marianne to finish a puzzle and progress.
Story
In typical psychological-horror fashion, the trailers of The Medium seem fairly confusing, however, the officially released premise does give some insight into what’s going on.
“Players will find themselves in the body of Marianne, a medium hounded by visions, living and interacting across two worlds: the real, and the spirit world,” it explains. “Nothing is what it seems, everything has another side. As a medium with access to both worlds, you have a wider perspective and can see more clearly that there’s no one simple truth to what others perceive.”
Bloober Team’s CEO Piotr Babieno explained the themes a bit more in a press release, saying that The Medium is about how “when you change your point of view, you discover that things are more complicated and nuanced than you initially thought.” Ultimately, The Medium seems to be telling a story about perspective in a very literal and horrific way.
The game takes place at the Niwa Hotel and Marianne will run into two characters throughout the game. First, there’s Sadness, a little girl that’s stuck at the Niwa Hotel and wears a creepy mask. Marianne will also have to deal with The Maw, an evil entity that seems to be the source of Marianne’s hellish experience. The Maw is voiced by none other than Troy Baker.
Fans of the psychological-horror video game genre can expect to play The Medium when it hits the shelves on January 28th, 2021!