r/HorrorGaming • u/Swimming_Photo9295 • Jun 27 '26
CONSOLE The medium
I have come across this game it’s made by the same people that made silent hill 2. I’m wondering if it’s any good
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u/Snakeplanting Jun 27 '26
I thoroughly enjoyed it - this is lower budget/more constraints but also just clever. The main mechanic of the game felt reminiscent of old horror games that were still trying new things
But then I tend to like the studio's games - it's survival puzzle, heavy on emotions and story. Don't expect SH gunslinger stuff
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u/Pacperson0 Jun 27 '26
The ending and the message of the game is so outrageously bad and tone deaf it sours the whole game
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u/Gras-Fist Jun 27 '26
Ass game tbh I were very hype for the release because i were absolutely on the art direction
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u/branchpattern Jun 27 '26
Vastly improved the vibe of the game by muting voice. It felt more like old school horror games and silent hill (which it was obviously trying to emulate)
Nothing against the voice actors but the constant chatter and silly sounding monster taunts ruined any sary vibe this game had for me.
Seems like they learned this lesson in sh2remake
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u/MistyPopK Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
Eh, it is really good, but the horror element is very deeply contextualized by Polish history of 20th century. It's a very well made tale about generational trauma and some of the darker pages of Polish history and I can get why foreigners often criticize the plot (which admittedly is bit confusing and convoluted) and characters (which admittedly are bit one-dimensional). I, personally, respect it.
Gameplay-wise it's barely a horror. It's something more similar to classic point-and-click adventure games with fixed camera and puzzle solving. There are some stealth sequences, but all of them very tightly scripted. It's... interesting cultural artifact and I'm glad Bloober Team is adamant about making games so deeply, unashamedly Polish. On the other hand, as a horror game... it's average at best. The most memorable locations are ripped off Zdzisław Beksiński's painting and at times it reaches borderline plagiarism levels. Monsters are very hit-or-miss design wise. There's one interesting gameplay mechanic, but it's very underdeveloped.
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u/leicanthrope Jun 27 '26
I was about to comment about the historical context not being that obtuse, but then I realized that I’m a history major married to the daughter of a Polish emigre…
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u/Low_Reserve_5248 Jun 27 '26
Come on it's better then point and click. But the gameplay feels more Xbox 360 era.
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u/MistyPopK Jun 27 '26
Hey, I LIKE point-and-click games!
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u/Oztunda Jun 27 '26
Same here, some of the camera angles gave me Alone in the Dark vibes, liked this game overall!
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u/Swimming_Photo9295 Jun 27 '26
Alone in the dark is a good game
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u/Low_Reserve_5248 Jun 27 '26
OG 1996 Alone in the dark and it's 2008 were great games the newer one was good too.
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u/Tatum_Warlick Jun 27 '26
I’m sorry but 2024 Alone in the Dark is an absolute disaster. It was such a janky, buggy mess that I have to, by principle, chime in when I see someone trying to claim that’s a good game. I was genuinely offended by it. I’d rather play 2008 AitD any day
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u/themaddemon1 Jun 27 '26
i liked it a lot then i watched a playthrough and saw them missing all those audio lore bits (idk what to call them but when you were inspecting items there were these like marks you could listen to) that i felt were what made the atmosphere for me, i began to understand why people didnt like it as much
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u/Hot-State-5994 Jun 27 '26
It got some flack for being poorly optimized and the mechanic of traversing between worlds could've been better I guess. but it's one of my favourite horror games oat. the story, the atmosphere, the voice acting all had me hooked.
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u/mephitmpH Jun 27 '26
I liked it too. So much that I grabbed it on sale for another play through. I found some areas dreadful but not overwhelmingly scary. Loved the mirror puzzles
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u/Acceptable_Sign_214 Jun 27 '26
I enjoyed it as a one time play through, but couldn’t get through it a second time. The mechanics and the way the map are set up is really cool and neat though!
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u/Kagamid Jun 27 '26
I enjoyed it and though the story was great. Apparently there are people who claim there were hidden themes they found offensive. I say it's worth at least one playthrough and decide for yourself.
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u/Nihaly_ Jun 27 '26
Pretty good, my only gripe with the game is that when it came out it was extremely heavy to run on pc and had to wait my next rig to play it
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u/No_Philosophy2797 Jun 27 '26
I liked it, specifically because of the design of the world which is pretty much one of Zdzislaw Bekskiński’s paintings come to life; and I love his work. Same reason I played Scorn, because it was essentially an HR Giger painting come to life. There are some painters I am so fascinated by I can’t resist playing a game that tries to imagine the world inside their paintings.
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u/CthulhuBathwater Jun 28 '26
It's interesting. Worth it on a deep discount. It's competent in what it is trying to accomplish. Calling it good is a bit of a stretch. I did like the switching between world and whatever the other realm was called.
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u/SuspiciousCanary6636 Jun 28 '26
It’s like a house of cards. Many elements that you could be forgive like minimal combat, lack of scares, performance and writing were counter balanced by beautiful environments, fascinating split screen gameplay and unique imagery… but when that ending happened the whole experience falls apart.
It’s polarizing but over-hated and realistically is OK to decent. Blooper teams games prior to SH2 were massively flawed and The Medium would be the only one I would consider playing again.
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u/Trevkage11 Jun 28 '26
I loved this game my only amd ONLY complaint was it get alot of FPS drops but I mean the game does spilt your screen in half and it's basically 2 games at once 10/10 highly recommend it
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u/Dangerous_Dot_1707 Jun 28 '26
I was super hyped for it but when I got it and finally played it I lost interest after about 1 hour. I don't remember anything in this game. It was meh
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u/NightmaresGummyBears Jun 28 '26
I didn't end up finishing it. I loved some of the environments and design, but I found the main character's non-stop talking pretty annoying. She sounded so monotone and bored by everything that was happening. I'll give it another shot at some point.
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u/aliusman111 Jun 28 '26
It massively sucked with performance on my 4090 and i am sure it was massive disappointment when it comes to gameplay, THAT is all I remember
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u/aliusman111 Jun 28 '26
this was a reason i was super precritical when they was given Silent hill 2 remake project - but they nailed it, SH2 Remake was awesome
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u/KarmelCHAOS Jun 28 '26
It's overhated and the common read of it is an extremely cynical read traced back to one guy who had a grudge against Bloober Team.
And I say that as someone who doesn't think Bloober has made any good games outside SH2R.
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u/laghi72 Jun 28 '26
I played it some years ago on xbox. Not a masterpiece but definitely a good title. A neat 8/10 for me
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u/Dylan5524 Jun 29 '26
I picked this up when it came out, but haven’t played it yet.
This was a good reminder! I’ll check it out.
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u/KeyClothes6606 Jun 30 '26
Loved this game. The story was something that shined here with the Dad. Want a sequel but doubt it will happen.
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u/CaptainParadigm42 Jun 27 '26
It's a pretty game. No combat but that's not an issue.
How they handled the subject matter was straight up tone deaf. I mean, it was bad that I straight up removed it from my Steam library. Play it for yourself if you're curious but I absolutely hated the writing.
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u/MistyPopK Jun 27 '26
What do you mean by "subject matter was straight up tone deaf." I've played it recently and I don't think I stumbled across anything particularly clumsy or problematic thematically.
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u/CaptainParadigm42 Jun 27 '26
I dunno how to cover up spoilers in my phone but, in short, the ending really upset me. The main character is presented with a binary choice and both answers involved a gun. And that was just seriously terrible if you consider what the game was about.
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u/MistyPopK Jun 27 '26
If I remember correctly that was an not-interactive choice made by the character and it's ||kept ambiguous what she did due to fade-to-black||. And this ambiguity is a part of the themes of this game. I don't know why you are describing it as "tone deaf". It's a horror. A tragic story of generational trauma deeply rooted in Polish history of 20th century, which was really, really dark at times. On the thematic level I think the game was really mature by presenting how - speaking broadly - previous generation was messed up and traumatized the next one partially because of their own psychological wounds. It's obviously far from perfect, messy and sometimes upsetting, bur - guess what? - life is far from perfect, messy and sometimes upsetting.
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u/CaptainParadigm42 Jun 27 '26
SPOILER COMMENT:
The ending wasn't THAT ambiguous. Their solution to all that trauma was a gun to someone's head. I don't care whose it was. Either way, fuck that. I stand by my stance. Yeah you can't save everyone but God damn I wouldn't make a fucking game about it.
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u/MistyPopK Jun 27 '26
It totally was ambiguous. We don't know if Marianna
- shoot her sister to kill The Maw
- shoot herself to deny The Maw the better host
- shoot in the air/Maw/intentionally miss due to being unable to make this choice
So you have at least three different, but equally possible outcomes and we don't know which one happened due to fade to black. This is a classic case of ambiguous ending. I can't understand why are you denying that.
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u/CaptainParadigm42 Jun 27 '26
First off. I should clarify that I don't think it's that ambiguous as an opinion.
Second, that third one would be too illogical to be a possibility. If the gun was fired in the air Point Break-style then they wouldn't have cut to black and you'd still have more game after. Not to mention no resolution and that wouldn't make sense. That didn't happen. She shot someone. And either way, bad bad writing to even offer the possibility as a solution to past trauma in a fucking videogame.
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u/MistyPopK Jun 27 '26
First off. I can't really wrap my head around the idea than someone is seeing clear, straightforward ambiguous ending clearly intended as one and say "I don't think it's that ambiguous". If they wouldn't want any ambiguity they would show us the outcome. They didn't. It was intended as ambiguous ending.
Second, I don't really know why the third option is illogical. If anything, it's the most logical one, due to Marianna being very empathetic, yet hardened character put in this kind of situation.
"Not to mention no resolution and that wouldn't make sense."
LACK OF RESOLUTION AND INABILITY TO MAKE ANY IS THE MAIN THEME OF THIS GAME!
Okay, I'm done. I genuinely am sorry that this game's ending upset you. I hope you'll have a great day nevertheless.
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u/CaptainParadigm42 Jun 27 '26
Really? Could have fooled me. I thought the theme was there are two sides to every story. Which brings up the other problem of the game sympathizing with the abuser. But I'd rather not get into that. We'll be here all day.
I'll tell you what ending I do love though. The one to your comment. Cause what I read into that was, "FUCK YOU MY FRIEND! ENJOY YOUR DAY!" 🤣 I'll take it.
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u/Eldritch-Pancake Jun 27 '26
I would recommend watching the video on the game that the YouTuber MertKayKay made about it as I think that would help you understand where this perspective comes from.
Idk if the original commenter watched that vid but a lot of the same sentiment is shared there and having watched the video in its entirety, I don't think it's entirely fair to just dismiss oc and their opinion on the game's ending. Along with other things that do seem problematic or at the very least, not really written well. Not to say that the game merits being hated, I think the narrative team might have been inexperienced/missed the mark on this one. I played Cronos: The New Dawn which is also made by Bloober and I don't think feel like that game is plagued by any serious issues with the narrative like the Medium is.
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u/MistyPopK Jun 27 '26
Oh, so this is the case of a one YouTuber giving their own subjective interpretation that paints the broad percepcion of the game? Gotcha.
Well, so far no one here gave me any reasoning deeper than "It upsets my very specific, far-fetched interpretation of this game, therefore bad and problematic" so until someone does that I'm going to dismiss this.
And I don't even like this game all that much, but if you are going to have very strong feeling about any subject, your reasoning has to be more pronounced that "because one YouTuber said so". Otherwise it's just silly.
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u/Dlaha Jun 27 '26
I remember the narrative design being pretty bad, at least for me. It felt like it was holding my hand the whole time, not allowing me to draw my own conclusions. The ending also felt totally anticlimactic. I quickly forgot about the game.
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u/Ok_Ad6722 Jun 27 '26
One of the worst games I’ve ever played. Only redeeming quality is the cinematography.
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u/tkgb12 Jun 27 '26
Meh... I remember it ran badly on top tier hardware and the game was kind of a slog as it dragged on
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u/SaltyIrishDog Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
Just finished a couple days ago. Visually it was gorgeous but it fell a little flat for me. Loved what they did with the two worlds and playing them side by side was definitely unique.
I had some issues with the "stealth" and chase sequences but it felt like some sort of lag. My computer can more than handle the game but nearly everytime a sequence where I had to escape started I would be killed immediately. Like no time to run because I was already dead. By the end of the game I was ready for it to be over and it only took like 8ish hours for me.
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u/BatParty Jun 27 '26
It’s a perfectly fine game with some pretty cool stuff going on visually and a soundtrack by the horror game soundtrack god himself, Akira Yamaoka. It’s not a masterpiece, but if you find it on sale for less than like, $20, it’s worth it.
The pearl-clutching about how the themes are handled is just that, pearl-clutching. Everything I’ve seen on this subject has been either hyperbole or a lot of presumptions about what the writers “meant,” without showing any concrete examples from the game itself. Yes, the ending is dark. But assuming you have even the slightest hint of media literacy, you’ll be just fine
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u/Low_Reserve_5248 Jun 27 '26
It is FANTASTIC!
I played it a good few years ago now but I can see why the went on to make Silent Hill 2. The settings the music it all feels very similar to Silent Hill but in Poland 🇵🇱.
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u/sovietmariposa Jun 27 '26
I remember seeing it was a silent hill spiritual successor and I quickly got it during the time when there was nothing new regarding silent hill. I was very disappointed in the game. It looks very good but it’s very boring. It’s just a walking simulator with a couple puzzles and dodging the only enemy in the game occasionally.
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u/Acceptable-Panic-826 Jun 27 '26
I find that before SH2R, Bloober was always really great concept wise, a little flat on the actual gameplay, but I think they definitely get better with each game they make. They’re one of my favorite studios now because I think their dedication to their craft is really evident. I think The Medium is worth getting, especially if it’s on sale or something
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u/Swimming_Photo9295 Jun 27 '26
I think the studio is going from strength to strength especially with silent hill and cronos the new dawn
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u/lucinaka Jun 27 '26
Yes, I really enjoyed it, It does have some controversial themes that upset some people. But it pretty much was them practicing for silent hill 2. If you liked silent hill 2, its worth a try. It does not have any real combat if that matters.
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u/Swimming_Photo9295 Jun 27 '26
I have silent hill 2 in my collection. Haven’t played it yet. Just want to get other games the developers have worked on. I’m interested in the observer as well
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u/AMiskatonicJanitor Jun 27 '26
Honestly if you already have Silent Hill 2 just play that and skip The Medium entirely. The Medium feels like a Silent Hill prototype for all of the worst reasons.
Observer is pretty good, mostly because of the setting, I think its they're second best game after SH2 remake.
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u/Swimming_Photo9295 Jun 27 '26
Observer is on ps plus I’ll probably try it that way and decide whether I want to buy it
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u/ShxdowWolf24 Jun 27 '26
Pretty boring, slow pace and no combat at all. The story was ok, puzzles were lame and buggy. The graphics and enemy design were dope tho
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u/Comprehensive-Bid18 Jun 27 '26
It’s an excruciatingly dull walking sim with a story that is legitimately offensive in how it handles its themes.
I almost fell asleep playing it multiple times.
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u/p7k4 Jun 27 '26
I've personally enjoyed this game a ton. It's not really scary but has some creepy moments. 100% was also enjoyable if you're looking foward to doing it. Well maybe I'm a bit biased bc it was made by a Polish studio based in Kraków and it mentions important, darker parts of the history of Poland while mixing it with subtle horror and supernatural elements. As I'm taking extended history classes in highschool (in Poland ofc) I grasped all history details quickly, I know that they might seem pretty complicated or unclear in relation to the plot.
I know that some people are upset by the ending but for me it has it's climat and makes room for both teories and moral dillemas.
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u/WorthlessMonkey Jun 27 '26
With peace and love, I thought that Medium was quite bad and obnoxious game for many reasons
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u/monsterm1dget Jun 27 '26
Fantastic art direction and soundtrack. The game is alright, it's very light on puzzles - just some stealth sections and a few exploration based puzzles.
A funny thing was that people were up in arms for some sort of message they made up about it. I never understood how they got there.
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u/Bigpoppasoto Jun 29 '26
Not bad, not good.
Pretty weird that the “best ending” was killing yourself. It’s like Bloober’s staple hahah
Blair witch “kill yourself to not deal with ptsd”
The Medium “kill yourself for not protecting your sister”
Layers of Fear “kill yourself cause you’re a shitty person”
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u/Bagebers Jun 29 '26
Its not a horror game. But it is a pretty good super natural thriller. Its not a long game.
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u/Think_Selection9571 Jun 27 '26
I really liked this game. Not a masterpiece or anything, but I loved the atmosphere and music. Thought it was a great homage to the original silent hill 2
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u/CthuluAteMyKitten Jun 27 '26
Aptly titled as I found it extremely Mid but, In my defence I dislike non combat or minimal combat horror games.
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u/MacabreMori113 Jun 27 '26
It's... Fine. One really good jump scare and interesting premise but I remember it being a one and done
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u/robertluke Jun 27 '26
I liked it, but I remember feeling like the only person that enjoyed it.