Bloober Team, the company behind Layers of Fear and Observer, has promised to ring in the new console generation with The Medium, an Xbox console exclusive. The latest horror work from a company known for its horror games in recent years, The Medium is a departure from the norm for Bloober in a few ways. If everything shown about it delivers however, it may well contribute to being one of the reasons the Xbox Series X will be a great horror platform.
Unlike the other, first-person titles by Bloober Team, The Medium takes place in third person. It is an immersive, supernatural, psychologic horror game that takes place in a split perspective. This is represented by players controlling the main character (the eponymous Medium) and her Astral Projection at the same time. Players must make their way through an abandoned facility and its spiritual counterpart at the same time to solve a murder.
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The game certainly shows promise in several areas. Bloober’s previous horror works have been largely on-rail first-person affairs, with players going through scary moments, but without great risk to their progress. The Medium seems much more interactive, with players having to work their way through both worlds and using the ways they interact to bypass obstacles. Also intriguing is the talent behind the art side of the game. It was already known that The Medium had Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka on board, but it was recently revealed that singer Elizabeth Mary McGlynn was also brought on. McGlynn and Yamaoka are former collaborators on Silent Hill, and now they’re together again for The Medium.
This is not the only Silent Hill reunion going on in The Medium, and not even the only musical one. Troy Baker is part of The Medium as the voice of The Maw, the central antagonistic force in the game. Baker has lent his voice to several game characters in the past, the notable one here being James Sunderland in the Silent Hill HD Collection. He is also a musician, and was part of Yamaoka’s band alongside McGlynn before Yamaoka’s departure from Konami. While it is unlikely that Baker will be contributing his musical talent to the soundtrack, McGlynn almost certainly is, as she has provided vocals for the entire Silent Hill series, and worked with Yamaoka frequently.
The choice of Silent Hill veterans for the voicework and music of The Medium is not surprising. The Medium draws on similar themes to the Silent Hill series, with characters’ feelings warping the area around them, although in The Medium this seems limited to the spirit world. Of course, The Medium takes as much from Titanfall 2 as it does from Silent Hill when it comes to the actual gameplay. The dual worlds interacting with each other are very prominent in Titanfall 2‘s time travelling section, and Medium seems to be expanding on it with two worlds existing and interacted with simultaneously. How it will all mesh together remains to be seen, but the idea is certainly intriguing.
More intriguing still is the fact that The Medium will not feature any weapons. This is a big change from Titanfall 2, and even the Silent Hill series, which often had means of at least distracting its creatures. Also unusual is Troy Baker voicing a villain, a monster no less, and the central antagonist of the game. What exactly The Maw is is not yet clear, but with the veteran Silent Hill team voicing it and providing its theme music, odds are it will be a terrifying, weaponless, dualistic ride.
The Medium is scheduled for release in holiday of 2020 for the PC and Xbox Series X.
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