Many horror franchises can serve as inspiration for all kinds of medium (no pun intended). Within the video game industry, IPs such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill always rise to the top of the list when considering past experiences that can influence new titles. Such is the case with The Medium, a new Xbox exclusive IP from developer Bloober Team. 

Set in 1990s Poland, The Medium tasks players with seeing the world through the eyes of a medium named Marianne, as an unknown individual calls her to investigate an old vacation resort called Niwa Workers Resort. Marianne feels drawn to this case without rhyme or reason and sets off into the unknown in search of answers. 

There is a lot to unpack underneath The Medium’s seemingly shallow surface. The game can easily be labelled as a walking simulator, as the title even makes a few tongue in cheek references to it within the achievement list. As easy as it would be to make that accusation, calling The Medium a walking simulator couldn’t be further from the truth. When done right, walking simulators tend to resonate with the players bridging a neural link between audience and character. The Medium desperately wants players to experience life in Marianne’s shoes; however, it often feels like a chore. The character acts only to drive the plot forward and not for her own development. Instead of developing a connection with Marianne, players instead feel driven to see the end of the story. This is by no means a negative ideology; however, it should not be the only aspiration for a title that identifies with walking simulators.

The Medium’s gameplay can easily be the culprit of the title’s inability to resonate with players as effectively as it should. By utilizing tank controls of past successes, such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill, The Medium aims to capture the feeling of being limited in mobility, adding to the horror aesthetic. The issue with this concept is in its execution. Tank controls are successful in older horror titles because they limit the player’s mobility in high-stake encounters that otherwise require free-flow interaction. In The Medium, the tank controls only serve to slow down player progression and add artificial difficulty to the title, translating to frustration. 

Despite the title’s Resident Evil and Silent Hill vibes, likening the games together does all of them a disservice by asking one to live up to the expectations of the others. In the end, all this does is devalue the experience each of them provides. Older Resident Evil and Silent Hill titles are more focused on marrying gameplay and narrative to craft an experience that is universally enjoyable. In contrast, The Medium heavily prioritizes narrative to the point where the gameplay severely suffers from it. 

Throughout 90% of the game, players will walk or awkwardly slow jog their way through levels, interacting with objects and the environment to progress narrative plot points. There are only a handful of times when Marianne can run; however, those are only during scripted encounters. Combat in The Medium is virtually non-existent, and the character is limited to just two abilities for the entire game, both of which are earned within the first half-hour. In an experience that can range from 6 to 8 hours for completion, having everything unlocked within the first thirty minutes, save for a few key items, is limiting and can result in a mundane gameplay loop really early on.

Despite the bland and exhausting gameplay, The Medium offers a narrative that, although slow to start, can be gripping once the ball is rolling. This isn’t to say the narrative of The Medium is perfect, but it does balance out many frustrations posed by the gameplay. During the game’s early hours, the story does not work in the player’s favour and will instead generate more questions than it can answer. As more plot points are revealed in the second half, there is a noticeable shift in the title’s ability to captivate player attention. The character Sadness, for example, creates enough intrigue to solely captivate audience attention and drive the plot forward without giving away enough information for the audience to predict what will come next. 

The ability of side characters, like Sadness, to drive the narration forward is due in part to good voice acting. Sadness herself does a phenomenal job, ironically, bringing life to each interaction with Marianne. Additional side characters who are introduced later in the story also contribute to grounding the experience by providing performances that rival more well-known voice actors. Oddly, the title takes place in 1990s Poland, but everyone speaks perfect English without any polish accents. This is possibly an intentional direction sought by developers. However, the game could have easily taken place in North America, and nothing about it would have changed aside from street signs. 

Unfortunately, the actress portraying Marianne is perhaps the worst addition to the cast, as her line delivery is almost always flat and contrary to the scene on display. This is even more disappointing as Marianne will often talk to herself while exploring environments, creating an even greater disconnect between what the player is asked to experience versus what they are actually experiencing. Regardless of the shallow acting of the main character, the narrative plot points in The Medium are enough to spark an interest in player intrigue, creating a desire to see the title through to completion.

Completing The Medium and truly understanding the mystery surrounding the plot is a journey on its own, as there are multiple factors working against those who undertake this task. Aside from gameplay and controls that create more frustration than they do challenge, The Medium possesses a host of bugs and technical issues that can easily ruin anyone’s experience. There is nothing in the game that will physically prevent players from completing it, such as a game-breaking bug, however there are enough technical issues to disrupt anyone’s enjoyment of the title. 

For starters, The Medium has been marketed as Xbox’s first “Next-Gen” experience. If there is any truth to this statement, then the future of Microsoft’s next-generation is bleak and underwhelming. The Medium runs at an unstable 30 FPS, with a fixed camera angle and a resolution that boasts 4K, but can dip as low as 900P. From start to finish, there was no evidence to support the title being a “next-gen” only game due to hardware limitations of the previous Xbox consoles. There are countless times throughout the game where the framerate would dip below 30, and consistent stuttering was noticeable. For a title with fixed camera angles and limited mobility, there is no argument towards not having 60FPS, especially on next-generation hardware.

Unfortunately, inconsistent FPS and stuttering is not the worst of the experience. In a narrative-focused title, strong animations are key to establishing immersion between audience and characters. The Medium’s facial animations, especially on Marianne, are poor and uninspired. When talking and expressing any form of emotion, only the eyes and mouths of a character will move, creating a stunted performance in scenes that are portrayed to carry great emotional weight. 

Pop-in textures are also a huge problem for the title. From environmental objects to character clothing, articles are constantly absent from most scenes until appearing midway through the interaction. Marianne looks into a mirror at one point in the game and says to herself: “Hey Marianne, you look like shit.” A line no doubt intended to contribute to the narrative of the game, however ironically spoke to the technical state of the title as well. Marianne’s reflection in the mirror displays a resolution that is seemingly sub-900P, truly causing the game to look like shit. Contributing to this issue, the game’s visuals will often bug out, creating a rainbow effect with pop-in lighting, almost as if the back-end coding is destabilizing. There are a few points in the game where the rainbow effect caused by the destabilization of the code is too noticeable to ignore and can ruin the atmosphere of the scene in question. 

The game, much like the narrative it proposes, is torn between two realities. One where its premise and intention is good and the other where its gameplay and execution are poor. Between the lacklustre and trite gameplay and the intrusive technical issues, the greatest threat to those who play The Medium isn’t the simulated horror, rather the game itself. However, behind all of the problems that plague The Medium, there exists a story that is worth telling. Hopefully, the developers can implement a better gameplay loop if there is a potential sequel and allow this story to be properly appreciated.  

Score: 6/10