The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan

WayTooManyGamesTodd Eggleston

8/10

Man of Medan is the first game in The Dark Pictures Anthology, Supermassive Games’ series of short horror stories. With their last four titles being for either PSVR or PlayLink, it is also the first true console follow-up to their PS4 entry title, Until Dawn, as well as their first notable multiplatform title. Although it fails to hit the same surprising benchmark that made Until Dawn the sleeper hit of 2015, Man of Medan still does more than enough to have me truly excited for the entire...

Capsule ComputersTravis Bruno

8/10

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan tells a spooky tale sure to unnerve most players and although it has some issues it does so while offering plenty of unique paths that makes the game perfect for more than one playthrough.

RPGFanPeter Triezenberg

70/100

Overall, Man of Medan is a promising, if flawed, introduction to The Dark Pictures universe. Supermassive clearly intends to kickstart a franchise with this one: the second installment, Little Hope, has already been announced for early 2020, and the Curator’s repository is filled with portraits of different spooky incidents rife with storytelling potential. I’m definitely down for more horror adventures from Supermassive, but I hope that the next one gets some much-needed optimization before it hits store shelves.

Impulse GamerNathan Misa

The rise in popularity of interactive choice-based narrative video games this console generation - particularly for lovers of horror drama - owes a lot to

NoobFeedAdam Siddiqui

65/100

Man of Medan is a great start to The Dark Pictures Anthology. The slow pace of the start won't appeal to everyone but comes together in the end. With each decision leading to a ripple effect down the line. However, the slow movement of the characters and the inability to skip dialogue and cutscenes does mean you'll have to replay large sections to see alternative takes. Regardless, Man of Medan delivers a solid horror narrative full of reasons to come back and play again.

GameSpotJames O'Connor

6/10

Still finding its sea-legs.

Sirus GamingMay Alturas

5.9/10

We want to emphasize that 5 will always be the “average” number, not 7. So by far, it’s 50% great and it’s also 50% bad.

Push SquareJohn Cal McCormick

5/10

Republished on Wednesday 29th June 2022: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of July's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows.

The OuterHavenBy Diego Perez

In 2015, Supermassive released a game called Until Dawn, which let players take control of a campy slasher flick and manipulate the story and character relationships however they pleased. The Dark Pictures Anthology takes that idea and runs with it. Supermassive plans on releasing an interactive horror experience in the vein of their 2015 breakout hit - Read our full Video Game Reviews on The Outerhaven .

GamingTrendDavid Flynn

45/100

A great game held back by numerous technical problems. The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan promises another great experience in the vein of Until Dawn, but at least on the standard console is too stuttery to play. Much of the content will be inaccessible due to these performance issues. If you have an enhanced console definitely check it out, but unless it receives a patch it can scarcely be considered playable.

VideogamerColm Ahern

4/10

Man of Medan's story and characters fail to reach the heights of Supermassive's homage to the slasher flick, Until Dawn. The Dark Pictures Anthology isn't off to the greatest of starts.

Checkpoint GamingLuke Mitchell

Unscored

After the surprise success of campy teen horror Until Dawn in 2015, Supermassive Games have smartly, if not quite ambitiously, engaged in creating more horror stories with the same choice-based mechanics and concept of “anyone can die at any time”. Not only that, but they have planned an anthology series in The Dark Pictures that is supposed to span eight games over the next four years, all featuring different characters and different things that go bump in the night.