The Medium -a PS5 horror game is a narrative style psychological horror thriller that takes maximum advantage of the new PS5 technology and its amazing controllers.
Through the talks of the game developing legends Bloober team working on a new game, most probably the Silent Hill, The Medium graced the psychological horror genre with its arrival.
The Medium has been considered as one of the best horror games on the Xbox console by many. After being an Xbox exclusive for almost eight months, the psychological horror-thriller was finally made available to the PS5 consoles. Soon curiosity mixed with lots of scepticism followed as to how a third-party game would fare on the next-gen PS5 console and its new DualSense controllers.
Narrative:
This PS5 horror game follows around a girl named Marianne who has had an intensely deep connection with the spirit world since her childhood. The game story begins right after her foster father’s death. She then receives a weird phone call asking her to come to Niwa which is an abandoned resort that was once run by the government. She goes to the Niwa resort in search of answers and almost immediately senses a lot of misery and dark secrets hiding in this place. Using her powers, she befriends a little girl named Sadness’s spirit. Sadness then guides her around Niwa where she meets other not so pleasant spirits. She then begins investigating the around abandoned resort only to uncover a terrifying tragedy that happened at the same place years ago.
At the same time something with the name Creature tries to kill Marianne in both the worlds.
The game unfolds in two worlds- the real one and the spirit world. Let us describe to you what the spirit world is like. The spirit world is a sort of a mirror of the real one that sheltering creepy and weird mask-wearing spirits and creatures that are beyond monstrous. Our main character Marianne is the window that lets us peek into this greyish world full of pain and secrets.
The game expects you to solve intriguing puzzles, survive against sinister and evil spirits all the while uncovering deep dark secrets that are the plot of the game.
Review of this PS5 horror game:
Adding in certain elements from both the Silent Hill and Resident evil, Bloober team pulled all stops to give the game an eerie atmosphere that gives the players generous servings of horror and anticipation. Moreover, the marvellous camera angles coupled with the limited arsenal that can be used in case of dire situations, adds to the overall dread of this game.
The Bloober team also gave their game a revolutionary touch to match the pace PS5’s DualSense controllers set and turn it into a PS5 horror game. They outdid themselves in bringing out utmost immersion by plotting small details cleverly, making the whole game come to life. Like for example when the enemies are close, the lightbar flashing very innovatively reflects how Marianne’s flashlight glows inside the game. The DualSense controller starts rumbling in your hands as soon as enemies are near and only relax when you are out of danger. The haptic feedback makes the rumbling while picking up objects quite an experience. Or for example, when she is using her Spirit shield ability while trying to protect her against the attack of thousands of moths in the spirit world, you can literally feel those creatures clashing against the barrier through the controller in your hand. Another one where when Marianne is using her ability the Spirit Blast, she has to charge the power first in her palms and then shoot it forward towards her desired destination. Here the adaptive triggers resist to be pressed until the blast is completely charged.
The game developing team of this PS5 horror game also made sure that the adaptive triggers were utilized to make the game more impactful like for Spirit Blast. However, we feel that the usage of adaptive triggers felt a bit grey as compared to the that of the adaptive triggers. Not only this the team has also put in efforts to innovatively use the controller’s light bars, speakers, motion controls and touchpad.
The most amazing thing that the Medium brought out was the dual-reality concept. Under this mechanics the screen is divided into two splits both displaying a world- the real world and the spirit world. Existing and exploring both the world simultaneously is something unheard of before that reflects the vision of the game. Add in the DualSense’s adaptive trigger which makes exploration, transition between both the worlds and combat a whole new experience. The adaptive triggers respond to those transitions and gameplay music bringing out the most of the horror game.
We also think that that the dual-reality concept of this game is one of the best ways to use the new-gen hardware and allow it to display its potential to the maximum. The game had pretty much established that to solve the puzzles and move forward the player has to move between the two worlds. Be it fighting against a blockade in the real world or connecting to an object in the spirit world, the game requires you to have your existence in both worlds without having your physical body follow.
While the game has everything planned and sorted out, it does fall flat in some parts. The synchronization of the haptic feedback to that of the rumble from the gameplay is sometimes delayed and thus leads to ruining the feeling of immersion. Sometimes the transitions between the world are slower than expected as the game experiences a notable lag in movement. There are also a few frame drops at times that make the game not so fun and perfect.
In conclusion:
With setting out to find Thomas to unearthing the most disturbing and horrifying conclusion to this psychological horror thriller, we still couldn’t come to terms with the inescapable nature of its conclusion. Overall, we think that the game had too many empty puzzles and prolonged levels with minimum combat. The only challenging and scary factor of the whole game was the creature other than that there was no fear or nervousness factor of failure or death.
On the positive side, implementing the dual-reality concept was quite refreshing and fun that saves the game from falling into the cliché list. Add on the amazing DualSense features, the Medium makes for one interesting PS5 horror game.
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