The Medium PS5 Review – Existing in Two Worlds

The Medium exists in two worlds. Yes, the game often shifts between the real world and the spiritual realm, but it’s also an enthralling cinematic experience oft hampered by a clumsy game. Like protagonist Marianne simultaneously present in both worlds, The Medium itself exists in both of these places, a fractured identity. The jarring shifts between cinematic narrative horror experience and those inelegant gameplay moments don’t outright ruin the game, but they do present some stumbling blocks along the way.

The Medium tells the story of Marianne, a woman deeply connected with the spirit world since her childhood. After receiving a mysterious phone call from someone claiming to know what she can do, she travels to the Niwa Resort, an abandoned place with a dark history that she may find some deeper connections with. At Niwa, Marianne meets the spirit of a child named Sadness as she tries to unravel the mystery of who called her, why, and what part she plays in this grander story.

At its outset, The Medium reminded me a lot of a game like Heavy Rain or Until Dawn. Cinematic camera angles, deliberate actions as you search the environment for story tidbits and ways to move forward. And once the game introduces the shifts into the spirit world, it really starts to remind one of Silent Hill, a clear influence for Bloober Team on this project. In fact, it’s enough to be considered a spiritual successor to the Silent Hill franchise, in just about everything but the name. Story is told through persistent narration, as well as comments Marianne makes about the world and situation around her. There are some other fun surprises in how the story is laid out too, and this clever interweaving kept me engaged throughout.

The only area the story really falters in is simply rolling through too many generally predictable horror game tropes. Each subsequent beat generally won’t surprise the player if they’re familiar with how horror developers often draw parallels between psychological trauma and otherworldly horror. At times it can tread through the topic of psychological traumas with all the grace of a bull in tap shoes (one sequence borders on expressing a sympathy/justification for an abuser based on their own trauma before thankfully steering clear), but it’s generally an interesting and enjoyable, if largely rote, horror narrative.

The Medium PS5 Review – Dual Realities

The biggest unique thing that The Medium does is to not just shift between worlds, but allow Marianne to exist in both simultaneously. This allows for some very interesting cutscenes—watching spirits interact with objects in the spirit world and how that affects them in the real world—and makes for some intriguing and engaging puzzles. The screen will split to show two views of the same location. You’ll need to keep an eye on both for objects to interact with, passages to traverse, and other clues that can help you move forward and navigate the world and its mysteries.

There are times where there are dedicated shifts, you’ll be in either one or the other world, but especially impressive are those moments you are pulled into both at once. Overall, The Medium paces out these shifts rather well. I never felt like it was overly reliant on the real world, the spirit world, or even the split world moments, and the variety of environments keeps changing to make exploration never slog. Funny enough, in one sequence where I did feel like things were getting to be a bit repetitive slog, the character made a comment relating to that exact thing, something along the lines of “this again…?” so there was definitely a sense of self awareness anytime the pacing did start to drag.

Horror elements in The Medium are mostly relegated to unnerving tension. There are a couple of small jump scares here and there, but for the most part, The Medium just wants to creep you out with the sense that the spirit world is right there, waiting, just on the other side. But it inevitably runs into what is effectively the same issue with almost every horror game: how do you balance tension and gameplay? And it’s here that The Medium starts to stumble. While I loved exploring the dilapidated Niwa Resort and the game’s variety of environments in both the real world and the spirit world, coming across discarded remnants of its residents’ past traumas and horrors, I wasn’t exactly thrilled anytime I’d be put into encounters with The Medium’s looming threat: the mysterious creature known as The Maw.

The Medium PS5 Review – Fear to Frustration

The Maw is The Medium’s version of Mister X/Tyrant, Nemesis, Lady Dimetrescu, or Pyramid Head. A persistent threat that will pop up at inopportune moments and chase the player down, you don’t have a lot of recourse to combat The Maw. Marianne has the ability to absorb energy in the spirit world, which she can then use for a few different powers, like generating a shield around herself or sending out a blast. If she has energy, she can survive being grabbed by The Maw once, but often you need that energy elsewhere for a puzzle. And that’s only in the spirit world. The Maw can travel to the real world too, not to mention it’s invisible in that space, and Marianne is powerless there.

This means that there’s a lot of trial and error to escaping and outmaneuvering The Maw, with multiple frustrating deaths, lengthy reloads (for a PS5 game), and attempting the sequence all over again. These forced encounters with poor stealth mechanics feel completely at odds with the rest of the cinematic narrative centered game, suddenly making the player painfully aware that they are playing a game. And forget the tension. Even one failure against The Maw’s obnoxiously frustrating power is enough to take the cinematic horror tension and replace it with the cumbersome need to get past a generally unforgiving gameplay segment.

Aside from these moments, the journey through The Medium was generally intriguing, if fairly linear overall. A few side paths hold additional collectibles or items that lend some additional backstory, but for the most part, players should be able to go straight through this horror adventure with few detours, which generally keeps that pacing feeling good.

The Ps5 version of The Medium boasts some interesting use of the DualSense controller, using haptic feedback to communicate things within the spirit world, and adaptive triggers that give a bit of resistance for certain actions. It’s definitely not to the level that we see some first-party PS5 games use the controller, but it’s an overall admirable effort for a game that was ultimately a port from Xbox. The speaker also allows for some rather ghostly interactions with some of the audio throughout the game, making for a more immersive experience if you aren’t using headphones. However, the headphone audio is superb and probably the recommended way to get fully and truly immersed in the tension and terror that comes with being able to see the other side.

The Medium is an admirable horror experience from a developer that has been making a lot of huge strides for itself in the world of horror game development. It’s not something that is going to change the world of horror games, but it does enough unique things with the simultaneous dual-world mechanic to stand out. Like many horror games before it, it fails to balance its tension with certain gameplay mechanics that can turn from fear to frustration pretty quickly, but these are spaced out enough that it never ruined the experience wholesale. For any horror fans looking for a Silent Hill-esque game to fill that ominous void, The Medium will at least scratch that itch.

The Medium review code provided by publisher. Reviewed on a PS5. For more information, please read our Review Policy.