Ah, Bloober Team... it's a developer we've been hearing about a lot recently, and for good reason. They're the masterminds behind instant horror classics such as the two Layers of Fear titles and Observer; they also created the Blair Witch game, but we won't talk about that mishap right now. In more recent news, they've teamed up with Konami; an event that has only further fuelled the fires of the rumour mill about the Silent Hill franchise getting a much needed revival. Released in January of 2021, The Medium is Bloober Team's fourth horror creation, their largest project to date, and the first to be truly considered an AAA release. The question that beckons to be answered here is, is The Medium able to live up to being touted as a spiritual successor to magnificent Silent Hill franchise?

Set in Poland, 1999, you play as a psychic medium named Marianne. After a tragic accident took her step-father's life, she sets off to her childhood home to say her final goodbye to him and prepare him for his last journey. However, before the funeral can begin she receives a mysterious phone call from a man simply known as Thomas, who urges her to meet him at the nearby Niwa Resort. He claims that she is the only one who can help him, but little does Marianne know that the events that are about to unfold not only tell the tale of a major tragedy, but they will also help her uncover the long-lost secrets of her past.

Before you consider buying this game, you should be going into it knowing that you'll be in for a purely cinematic experience. There's no true combat, only a handful of stealth sections, and the gameplay is comprised mostly of easy puzzles that require you to find certain items to progress. This is entirely forgivable due to just how amazing the story here actually is, and how uniquely the gameplay is presented. Marianne's special psychic ability constantly tears her between the world of the living and the world of the dead, which will have you straddling the line of the two worlds at many moments of the campaign; you'll actually be controlling her real-world form and spirit form simultaneously in split-screen, exploring both planes at the same time. Oppositely, there are plenty of junctions where you only control one or the other as well. The split-play is executed in an absolutely phenomenal manner, and lends to the immersive quality of the story.

The art and sound direction are equally as stunning as the cinematic quality of the story and gameplay as well. The soundtrack... mmm MMMM oh the soundtrack... it was in-part created by Akira Yamaoka. Need I say more? If you answered yes, then that's on you. As far as the visuals go, on the one hand you have the world of the living; a rather blue, rainy, drab Polish cityscape that takes place mostly in the Niwa Resort, which is a large building, and later in a forest. On the other hand you have the spirit world; a rusty brown world filled with bones, fleshy barriers, and a feeling of ancient decay. Obviously the spirit world was highly inspired by Silent Hill, but what shines through even brighter than that is the inspiration from the work of painter Zdzisław Beksiński. The colour contrast between the two realms, especially when laid out side-by-side in split-screen, is wonderfully executed and, quite frankly, jaw-dropping; it looks even better with HDR turned on, and in 4K resolution played in DirectX 12 it is one of the best looking games on the market right now.

And that brings us to The Medium's biggest problem... its abysmal performance. Now, I know my build is pretty outdated at this time (i7-6700k/GTX 1080), but one glance over the forums and you'll see people with RTX 3080s and more modern builds having issues as well. I ran this game on full graphic settings, no raytracing, at 1080p, and I was getting as low as 20 FPS in some areas and saw most areas stabilize at 40 FPS. Some sections managed to pull 60 FPS, but relatively few. This game also made my watercooled CPU heat up to 90C+ while my GPU barely grazed 70C. This title also abhors alt + tabbing out of it, and it'll do a number of tricks on your desktop if you attempt to get to your taskbar while playing it. There are just some really, really strange performance anomalies across the board here, some that I've never even experienced before, and I've played over a thousand games on Steam alone. Sadly, it doesn't seem as though fixing any of these problems is high on Bloober Team's to-do list.

Looking past such attrocious optimization is something that I rarely do, I will damn a game to hell for subpar performance. However, in the case of The Medium, the FPS drops didn't seem to affect the gameplay much and it wasn't that noticeable; it's the rest of the problems that are a higher concern. Looking past all that, though, lies one hell of a stunning game. The story is a bit complex, as any Silent Hill inspired game should be, but that's because it requires you to use your mind to tie together the strings that you're given throughout its 8 hour experience. On top of a great story, stunning visuals, beautiful soundtrack is one of the most unique gameplay concepts you'll find on the market right now. The split-screen really works better than you'd think it would, and it's fun to have to use both worlds to solve progression puzzles. If you can cope with the technical issues The Medium has, it might just be the best game you play all year.

The Horror Network Curator | Group Click for Gore

Ah, Bloober Team... it's a developer we've been hearing about a lot recently, and for good reason. They're the masterminds behind instant horror classics such as the two Layers of Fear titles and Observer; they also created the Blair Witch game, but we won't talk about that mishap right now. In more recent news, they've teamed up with Konami; an event that has only further fuelled the fires of the rumour mill about the Silent Hill franchise getting a much needed revival. Released in January of 2021, The Medium is Bloober Team's fourth horror creation, their largest project to date, and the first to be truly considered an AAA release. The question that beckons to be answered here is, is The Medium able to live up to being touted as a spiritual successor to magnificent Silent Hill franchise? Set in Poland, 1999, you play as a psychic medium named Marianne. After a tragic accident took her step-father's life, she sets off to her childhood home to say her final goodbye to him and prepare him for his last journey. However, before the funeral can begin she receives a mysterious phone call from a man simply known as Thomas, who urges her to meet him at the nearby Niwa Resort. He claims that she is the only one who can help him, but little does Marianne know that the events that are about to unfold not only tell the tale of a major tragedy, but they will also help her uncover the long-lost secrets of her past. Before you consider buying this game, you should be going into it knowing that you'll be in for a purely cinematic experience. There's no true combat, only a handful of stealth sections, and the gameplay is comprised mostly of easy puzzles that require you to find certain items to progress. This is entirely forgivable due to just how amazing the story here actually is, and how uniquely the gameplay is presented. Marianne's special psychic ability constantly tears her between the world of the living and the world of the dead, which will have you straddling the line of the two worlds at many moments of the campaign; you'll actually be controlling her real-world form and spirit form simultaneously in split-screen, exploring both planes at the same time. Oppositely, there are plenty of junctions where you only control one or the other as well. The split-play is executed in an absolutely phenomenal manner, and lends to the immersive quality of the story. The art and sound direction are equally as stunning as the cinematic quality of the story and gameplay as well. The soundtrack... mmm MMMM oh the soundtrack... it was in-part created by Akira Yamaoka. Need I say more? If you answered yes, then that's on you. As far as the visuals go, on the one hand you have the world of the living; a rather blue, rainy, drab Polish cityscape that takes place mostly in the Niwa Resort, which is a large building, and later in a forest. On the other hand you have the spirit world; a rusty brown world filled with bones, fleshy barriers, and a feeling of ancient decay. Obviously the spirit world was highly inspired by Silent Hill, but what shines through even brighter than that is the inspiration from the work of painter Zdzisław Beksiński. The colour contrast between the two realms, especially when laid out side-by-side in split-screen, is wonderfully executed and, quite frankly, jaw-dropping; it looks even better with HDR turned on, and in 4K resolution played in DirectX 12 it is one of the best looking games on the market right now. And that brings us to The Medium's biggest problem... its abysmal performance. Now, I know my build is pretty outdated at this time (i7-6700k/GTX 1080), but one glance over the forums and you'll see people with RTX 3080s and more modern builds having issues as well. I ran this game on full graphic settings, no raytracing, at 1080p, and I was getting as low as 20 FPS in some areas and saw most areas stabilize at 40 FPS. Some sections managed to pull 60 FPS, but relatively few. This game also made my watercooled CPU heat up to 90C+ while my GPU barely grazed 70C. This title also abhors alt + tabbing out of it, and it'll do a number of tricks on your desktop if you attempt to get to your taskbar while playing it. There are just some really, really strange performance anomalies across the board here, some that I've never even experienced before, and I've played over a thousand games on Steam alone. Sadly, it doesn't seem as though fixing any of these problems is high on Bloober Team's to-do list. Looking past such attrocious optimization is something that I rarely do, I will damn a game to hell for subpar performance. However, in the case of The Medium, the FPS drops didn't seem to affect the gameplay much and it wasn't that noticeable; it's the rest of the problems that are a higher concern. Looking past all that, though, lies one hell of a stunning game. The story is a bit complex, as any Silent Hill inspired game should be, but that's because it requires you to use your mind to tie together the strings that you're given throughout its 8 hour experience. On top of a great story, stunning visuals, beautiful soundtrack is one of the most unique gameplay concepts you'll find on the market right now. The split-screen really works better than you'd think it would, and it's fun to have to use both worlds to solve progression puzzles. If you can cope with the technical issues The Medium has, it might just be the best game you play all year. [h1]Rating: [b]4.5/5.0[/b] - Excellent, highly worth playing.[/h1] The Horror Network [url=http://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/28221963/]Curator[/url] | [url=http://steamproxy.net/groups/thehorrornetwork]Group[/url] Click for Gore